ABSTRACT
Late glacial and early to mid-Holocene vegetation changes in the Lake Victoria region. East Africa were reconstructed by palynological analyses of a centrally-located sediment core. Comparison of these new results from the centrally-located core with previous data from a nearshore core (Kendall, 1969) show concordance both in the patterns of vegetation change and the chronology of these changes. Following aridity in tropical East Africa during the Last Glacial Maximum, the beginning of substantial forest expansion around Lake Victoria occurred between 12,000 and 11,500 14C yr BP. The period of maximum extent of moist forest, and presumably highest precipitation, in the Lake Victoria catchment occurred for approximately 1000 years from 7700 to 6700 14C yr BP. The timing of this mid-Holocene precipitation maximum around Lake Victoria occurs several thousand years later than suggested from records in other lakes of tropical East Africa.
