DOI: 10.5061/dryad.6djh9w1b0
title: Data from: Africa-wide diversification of livelihoods strategies: Isotopic insights into Holocene human adaptations to climate change

description: As livelihoods face threats from climate change globally, it is critical
 to clarify human-environment relationships, and the factors influencing
 risk, adaptation, and resilience. Contemporary African communities have
 contributed least to climate change, yet increasingly bear the greatest
 burden of its impacts. Africa contains the longest record of human-climate
 coevolution; however, Holocene livelihoods have not been comparatively
 characterised at continental scale. By combining archaeological context
 with isotopic niches to describe Holocene livelihoods (c. 11,000 BP -
 present) and their evolution during major climatic change (African Humid
 Period: c. 14,700-5500 BP), we demonstrate the socio-ecological
 development of livelihoods and their contributions to human resilience –
 particularly through livelihood diversification. By empirically comparing
 food-producing (pastoralism, cultivation) and food-gathering strategies
 (hunting-gathering, fishing), we contribute continental-scale context for
 the complex interactions underpinning the expansion of food production,
 and illustrate the importance of livelihood diversification under
 intensifying environmental change with implications for food security and
 human well-being.
description: The data was analysed in R and collected from publications
 associated with each isotopic record. Contextual information was
 summarised and then developed into a harmonised categorisation scheme,
 associated with isotope cluster type (isootpic niche). 
description: # Data from: Africa-wide diversification of livelihoods strategies:
 Isotopic insights into Holocene human adaptations to climate change This
 dataset includes metadata associated with the clustering of isotopic
 information and summarisation of Holocene human livelihoods in Continental
 Africa. Publications and associated information were collated into an
 Excel sheet. ## Description of the data and file structure Archaeological
 site names and country are listed in columns A-B. The assigned livelihood
 colour, determined via hierarchical clustering is listed in column C.
 Associated livelihood information gathered from publications is indicated
 in columns D-I: column D includes the publication reference from which
 summarised livelihood information was gathered; columns E-H reflect the
 applied categorisation scheme based on livelihoods information; column I
 summarises the information collected from the publication. The applied
 categorisation scheme describes the different livelihoods associated with
 each colour (please see the associated publication in OneEarth for a
 detailed description):  \- Red (primary association): Highly variable
 reliance on agro-pastoralism and hunting-gathering -  Blue (primary
 association): C4 centred pastoralism and agro-pastoralism \- Yellow
 (primary association): diversified hunting-gathering associated with
 aquatic protein \- Purple, Green (primary association):
 cultivation-centred livelihoods with 15N-enriched animal proteins \-
 Orange (primary association): diversified hunting-gathering tending
 towards mixed C4/C3 diets with limited reliance on 15N-enriched proteins
 \- Gray (primary reliance): C4-oriented mixed hunting-herding-fishing
 strategies AquaticStatus with NA values mean there is no aquatic status
 (i.e. categorically equal to 0).