Abstract
Recent research reveals that the arid western interior of South Africa has experienced substantially more
humid conditions on several occasions during the last 70 000 years. These findings, likely regional in
scope, speak to changes to the resource base available to prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Together with
recent archaeological findings from this region, there has emerged a growing recognition that previously
archaeologically overlooked areas of South Africa’s arid interior need to be included in models of human
history. This presents new challenges for archaeologists and palaeoclimatologists, particularly given the
prevalence of surficial, rather than stratified, archaeological evidence throughout much of this region.