A palaeoecological model for archaeological site distribution in southern Africa during the Upper Pleniglacial and Late Glacial

Lee’s (1963 ) pioneering article on the likely distribution of prehistoric populations in Southern Africa under varying environmental conditions started an interest among the region’s archaeologists in understanding longterm trends in human palaeodemography. Recent detailed discussion by H. Deacon & Thackeray (1984 ) has concentrated on changes in the size and distribution of hunter—gatherer populations in Africa south of the Limpopo over the last 125 000 years. Using shifts in the occurrence and number of dated archaeological sites as a measure of these variables, they have interpreted them in terms of variations in resource productivity ultimately deriving from climatic changes during the most recent Interglacial—Glacial—Interglacial cycle. The same approach has been used to provide more detailed information on a regional scale ( Sampson 1985 , Beaumont 1986 ). In this chapter attention is focused, not on a particular region, but on a particular period, with the aim of explaining the localized distribution of archaeological occupations dating to, at, or near the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).