ABSTRACT
D uring the Holocene, West Africa witnessed important climatic uctuations coupled with vegetation changes (Ballouche and Neumann 1995; DeMenocal et al. 2000; Lézine 1989; Lézine, Duplessy, and Cazet 2005; Maley 2004a, b; Marchant and Hooghiemstra 2004; Russell, Talbot, and Haskell 2003; Salzmann and Hoelzmann 2005; Salzmann and Waller 1998; Salzmann, Hoelzmann, and Morczinek 2002). Increasing human impact on the vegetation during this period can be assumed but can hardly be discriminated from climate-induced changes (summarised in Neumann, Hahn-Hadjali, and Salzmann 2004; Salzmann 2000; Salzmann and Waller 1998). Terrestrial proxy data for the vegetation history in the key areas of human occupation are still rare in West Africa, mostly due to the lack of sediments suitable for pollen preservation. erefore, charcoal sequences become a valuable alternative tool to describe changes in woody vegetation through time (Neumann, Kahlheber, and Uebel 1998; Ballouche and Neumann 1995; Frank et al. 2001; Höhn 2002, 2005, 2007; Klee, Zach, and Neumann 2000) but may have a limited chronological resolution, and anthropogenic selection has to be considered (Neumann 1999).
