Archaeology, ethnography, and geosciences reveal central role of traditional lifeways in shaping Madagascar's dry forests.

ABSTRACT: Many communities in southwestern Madagascar rely on a mix of foraging, fishing, farming, and herding, with cattle central to local cultures, rituals, and intergenerational wealth transfer. Today these livelihoods are critically threatened by the intensifying effects of climate change and biodiversity loss. Improved understanding of ancient community-environment dynamics can help identify pathways to livelihood sustainability. Multidisciplinary approaches have great potential to improve our understanding of human-environment interactions across spatio-temporal scales. We combine archaeological survey data, oral history interviews, and high-resolution multispectral PlanetScope imagery to explore 400 years of human-environment interaction in the Namonte Basin. Our analysis reveals that settle

SUBMITTER: Davis DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11497563 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature