This page lists an up to date, comprehensive list of publications by the REAL network.

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

Hempson G, Parr C, Archibald S, Anderson T, Courtney Mustaphi, CJ, Dobson A, Donaldson J, Morrison T, Probert J, Beale C. Accepted June 2017. Continental-scale drivers of African pyrodiversity. Ecography.

Hawthorne D*, Courtney Mustaphi CJ*, Aleman JC*, Blarquez O, Colombaroli D, Daniau A-L, Marlon JR, Power M, Vannière B, Han Y, Hantson S, Kehrwald N, Magi B, Yue X, Carcaillet C, Marchant R, Ayodele O, Githumbi EN, Muriuki RM. Accepted in press. Global Modern Charcoal Dataset (GMCD): a tool for exploring proxy-fire linkages and spatial patterns of biomass burning. Quaternary International.
*equal contribution

Sánchez Goñi, M. F., Desprat, S., Daniau, A.-L., Bassinot, F. C., Polanco-Martínez, J. M., Harrison, S. P., Allen, J. R. M., Anderson, R. S., Behling, H., Bonnefille, R., Burjachs, F., Carrión, J. S., Cheddadi, R., Clark, J. S., Combourieu-Nebout, N., Courtney-Mustaphi, C. J., Debusk, G. H., Dupont, L. M., Finch, J. M., Fletcher, W. J., Giardini, M., González, C., Gosling, W. D., Grigg, L. D., Grimm, E. C., Hayashi, R., Helmens, K., Heusser, L. E., Hill, T., Hope, G., Huntley, B., Igarashi, Y., Irino, T., Jacobs, B., Jiménez-Moreno, G., Kawai, S., Kershaw, P., Kumon, F., Lawson, I. T., Ledru, M.-P., Lézine, A.-M., Liew, P. M., Magri, D., Marchant, R., Margari, V., Mayle, F. E., McKenzie, M., Moss, P., Müller, S., Müller, U. C., Naughton, F., Newnham, R. M., Oba, T., Pérez-Obiol, R., Pini, R., Ravazzi, C., Roucoux, K. H., Rucina, S. M., Scott, L., Takahara, H., Tzedakis, P. C., Urrego, D. H., van Geel, B., Valencia, B. G., Vandergoes, M. J., Vincens, A., Whitlock, C. L., Willard, D. A., and Yamamoto, M. 2017. The ACER pollen and charcoal database: a global resource to document vegetation and fire response to abrupt climate changes during the last glacial period. Earth System Science Data Discussions, doi:10.5194/essd-2017-4.

Bergius, Mikael, Tor A. Benjaminsen & Mats Widgren 2017. Green economy, Scandinavian investments and agricultural modernization in Tanzania. The Journal of Peasant Studies.

Armstrong CG, Shoemaker AC, McKechnie I, Ekblom A, Szabó P, Lane P, McAlvay AC, Boles OJ, Walshaw S, Petek N, Gibbons KS, Quintana-Morales E, Anderson EN, Ibragimow A, Podruczny G, Vamosi JC, Marks-Block T, LeCompte JK, Awâsis S, Nabess C, Sinclair P, Crumley CL. (2017) Anthropological contributions to historical ecology: 50 questions, infinite prospects. PLOS ONE. 12 (2) e0171883

Nik Petek & Paul Lane (2017): Ethnogenesis and surplus food production:
communitas and identity building among nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ilchamus, Lake Baringo, Kenya, World Archaeology.

Finch J, Marchant R, Courtney Mustaphi CJ. 2016. Ecosystem change in the South Pare Mountain bloc, Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. The Holocene.

Marlon, J. R., Kelly, R,. Daniau, A.-L., Vannière, B., Power, M. J., Bartlein, P., Higuera, P., Blarquez, O., Brewer, S., Brücher, T., Feurdean, A., Gil-Romera, G., Iglesias, V., Maezumi, S.Y., Magi, B., Courtney Mustaphi, C. J., Zhihai, T. 2016. Reconstructions of biomass burning from sediment charcoal records to improve data-model comparisons. Biogeosciences 13, 3225-3244.

Githumbi, E, Courtney Mustaphi, C, Marchant R. 2016. Holocene ecosystem, social and landscape dynamics in East Africa. Quaternary International 404(B): 199–200. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.08.175

Courtney Mustaphi, C and Marchant, R. 2016. A Database of Radiocarbon Dates for Palaeoenvironmental Research in Eastern Africa. Open Quaternary, 2: 3, pp. 1–7. [Data CARD2.0] [Data at Harvard Dataverse]

Kehrwald, N.M., Aleman, J.C., Coughlan, M., Courtney Mustaphi, C.J., Githumbi, E.N., Magi, B.I., Marlon, J.R., Power, M.J. 2016. One thousand years of fires: integrating proxy and model data. Frontiers of Biogeography 8(1): 155-159.

Lane, Paul J. (2016). Places and paths of memory: archaeologies of East African pastoralist landscapes. In J. Beardsley (ed.) Cultural Heritage Landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Harvard: Harvard University Press (Dumbarton Oaks Texts in Garden & Landscape Studies), pp. 193-234.

Lane, Paul J. (2016). Entangled banks and the domestication of East African pastoralist landscapes. In F. Fernandini and L. Der (eds.) Archaeology of Entanglement. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 127-150.

Lane, Paul J. (2016). Just how long does ‘long-term’ have to be? Matters of temporal scale as impediments to interdisciplinary understanding in historical ecology. In C. Isendahl and D. Stump (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199672691.013.5

Colombaroli, Daniele, Geert van der Plas, Stephen Rucina and Dirk Verschuren (2016). Determinants of savanna-fire dynamics in eastern Lake Victoria catchment (western Kenya) during the last 1200 years, Quaternary International, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.06.028

Chuhila, Maxmillian and Andrea Kifyasi (2016), ‘A Development Narrative of a Rural Economy: The Politics of Forest Plantations and Land Use in Mufindi and Kilimanjaro, Tanzania; 1920s to 2000s’ International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research 4, No. 3, pp. 528 – 538.

Anderson, David M. and Michael Bollig (2016). ‘Resilience and collapse: histories, ecologies, conflicts and identities in the Baringo-Bogoria basin, Kenya.’ Journal of Eastern African Studies 10, i: 1-20.

Anderson, David M. (2016). ‘The beginning of time? Evidence for catastrophic drought in Baringo in the early nineteenth century.’ Journal of Eastern African Studies 10, i: 39-61.

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ, Githumbi, EN, Shotter, LR, Rucina, SM, Marchant, R. Accepted. Subfossil statoblasts of Lophopodella capensis (Sollas, 1908) (Bryozoa: Phylactolaemata: Lophopodidae) in the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene sediments of a montane wetland, Eastern Mau Forest, Kenya. African Invertebrates.

Onyekuru, N.A. and Marchant, R., 2016. Assessing the economic impact of climate change on forest resource use in Nigeria: A Ricardian approach. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 220, pp.10-20.

Howard, R.J., Tallontire, A.M., Stringer, L.C. and Marchant, R.A., 2016. Which “fairness”, for whom, and why? An empirical analysis of plural notions of fairness in Fairtrade Carbon Projects, using Q methodology. Environmental Science & Policy, 56, pp.100-109.

Simon Willcock, Oliver L. Phillips, Philip J. Platts3, Ruth D. Swetnam, Andrew Balmford, Neil D. Burgess, Antje Ahrends, Julian Bayliss, Nike Doggart, Kathryn Doody, Eibleis Fanning, Jonathan M. H. Green, Jaclyn Hall, Kim L. Howell, Jon C. Lovett, Rob Marchant, Andrew R. Marshall, Boniface Mbilinyi, Pantaleon K. T. Munishi, Nisha Owen, Elmer J. Topp-Jorgensen, Simon L. Lewis, 2016. Land cover change and carbon emissions over 100 years in an African biodiversity hotspot. Global change biology.

Lane, Paul J. (2015). Archaeology in the age of the Anthropocene: A critical assessment of its scope and societal contributions. Journal of Field Archaeology 40: 485-498, http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/2042458215Y.0000000022.

Hazard, Benoit (2015). ‘Anthropocène’ in COP 21 Déprogrammer l’apocalypse, Sous la direction de Raymond Woessner, éditions Atlande.

Hazard, Benoit (2015). ‘Scénario du changement climatique en Afrique de l’Est’, in Cop 21. Changement climatique, impact anthropique, COP 21 Déprogrammer l’apocalypse, sous la direction de Raymond Woessner, éditions Atlande.

Adongo, Christine and Benoit Hazard (2015). ‘La géothermie : entre développement et énergie verte en Afrique de l’Est’, in COP 21 Déprogrammer l’apocalypse, ss. dir. de Raymond Woessner, éditions Atlande.

Hoogakker, B.A.A., Smith, R.S., Singarayer, J.S., Marchant, R., Prentice, I.C., Allen, J., Anderson, R.S., Bhagwat, S.A., Behling, H., Borisova, O. and Bush, M., et al., 2015. Terrestrial biosphere changes over the last 120 kyr and their impact on ocean δ 13C. Climate of Past Discussions, 11, pp. 1031-1091.

Courtney Mustaphi, C.J., Shoemaker, A.C., Githumbi, E.N., Kariuki, R., Muriuki, R.M., Rucina, S., Marchant, R. 2015. Historical ecology perspectives of changes in Amboseli, Kenya. GLP Newsletter – Newsletter of the Global Land Project, Issue 12, November 2015: pp 26-29. [Link to full issue]

Petek, N. (2015) An Archaeological Survey of the Lake Baringo Lowlands 2014: Preliminary Results, Nyame Akuma 83: 100-111 [Link to issue]

J. R. Marlon, R. Kelly, A.-L. Daniau, B. Vannière, M. J. Power, P. Bartlein, P. Higuera, O. Blarquez, S. Brewer, T. Brücher, A. Feurdean10, G. Gil-Romera, V. Iglesias, S. Y. Maezumi, B. Magi, C. J. Courtney Mustaphi, T. Zhihai. 2015. Reconstructions of biomass burning from sediment charcoal records to improve data-model comparisons. Biogeosciences Discussions 12 (22). doi:10.5194/bgd-12-18571-2015, 2015

Howard RJ, Tallontire AM, Stringer L, Marchant R (2015). Unravelling the notion of “fair carbon”: key challenges for standards development. World Development 70, 343–356

Platts PJ, Omeny PA, Marchant R (2015). AFRICLIM: high-resolution climate projections for ecological applications in Africa. African Journal of Ecology 53, 103-108 | AFRICLIM 3.0,doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.1284624

Woodroffe SA, Long AJ, Punwong P, Selby K, Bryant CL, Marchant R (2015). Radiocarbon dating of mangrove sediments to constrain Holocene relative sea-level change on Zanzibar in the southwest Indian Ocean. The Holocene 25, 820-831

Dearing J, …, Marchant R, et al. (in press 2015). Social-ecological systems in the Anthropocene: the need for integrating social and biophysical records at regional scales. The Anthropocene Review.

Kioko, E. M. & Bollig, M. (2015). Cross-cutting Ties and Coexistence: Intermarriage, Land Rentals and Changing Land Use Patterns among Maasai and Kikuyu of Maiella and Enoosupukia, Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya. Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History, 2(1): 1, pp. 1-16, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.16993/rl.ad

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ, Rucina, SM, Marchant, R. 2014. Training in emerging palaeoenvironmental approaches to researchers on the dynamics of East African ecosystems. Frontiers of Biogeography volume 6 issue 4, 169-172. [PDF]

Courtney Mustaphi, C.J. and Pisaric M.F.J. 2014. A classification for macroscopic charcoal morphologies found in Holocene lacustrine sediments. Progress in Physical Geography 38: 734-754. doi:10.1177/0309133314548886 [Data link]

Anderson, DM, Rolandsen, ØH. 2014. Violence as politics in eastern Africa, 1940–1990: legacy, agency, contingency. Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 539-557. DOI:10.1080/17531055.2014.949402

Anderson, DM. 2014. Remembering Wagalla: state violence in northern Kenya, 1962–1991. Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, 658-676. DOI:10.1080/17531055.2014.946237

Gillson, L; Marchant, R. 2014. From myopia to clarity: sharpening the focus of ecosystem management through the lens of palaeoecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 29: 317-325.
[PDF] [DOI] [+ Abstract]

Marchant, R, Lane, P. (in press). Past perspectives for the future: foundations for sustainable development in East Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science.
[+ Abstract]

Reports:

Robertson A, Githumbi E and Colombaroli, D (2016) Palaeofires and models illuminate future fire scenarios, Eos, 97, doi:10.1029/2016EO049933 Biogeosciences 97 2016 (PDF , 2,509kb)

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ, Marchant, R. Accepted. A database of radiocarbon dates for palaeoenvironmental research in eastern Africa. Open Quaternary.

Kehrwald, N.M., Aleman, J.C., Coughlan, M., Courtney Mustaphi, C.J., Githumbi, E.N., Magi, B.I., Marlon, J.R., Power, M.J. 2016. One thousand years of fires: integrating proxy and model data. Frontiers in Biogography 8(1): 155-159.

Petek, Nik (2015) An Archaeological Survey of the Lake Baringo Lowlands 2014: Preliminary Results, Nyame Akuma 83: 100-111.

Esther N. Githumbi, Rebecca Kariuki, Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi, Rebecca Muriuki, Stephen M. Rucina, Rob Marchant. 2015. Recent environmental changes in Eastern Mau and Amboseli, Kenya. BIEA 2014-2015 annual report, pp 22.

Annemiek Pas Schrijver, Geert W. van der Plas, Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi (eds.). 2015. Field diary. Issue 1 Jul 2015. 17pp. [PDF]

Petek, N. (2014) The Baringo Archaeological Survey and Human Habitation Impact Assessment. Unpublished report submitted to the British Institute in Eastern African (BIEA) and the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), Kenya

Esther N. Githumbi, Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi, Rob Marchant. 2014. Natural and anthropogenic causes of environmental change in the Amboseli and Mau Forest regions. BIEA 2013-2014 annual report, pp 11-12.

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ; Githumbi, E; Mutua, J; Muriuki, RM; Rucina, SM; Marchant, R. 2014. Ongoing sedimentological and palaeoecological investigations at Nyabuiyabui wetland, Kiptunga Forest Block, Eastern Mau Forest, Nakuru District, Kenya. Report to the Mau Forest Conservation Office, Kenya Forest Service, and the National Museums of Kenya Palaeobotany and Palynology Section. REAL contribution 002. 4 May 2014. 29 p.
[PDF] [+ Abstract] [Hardcopy available at the IFRA library, Kileleshwa, Nairobi, Kenya]

This report summarizes fieldwork done by members of the REAL project who are studying wetlands across Kenya to understand how these systems have evolved through time. We employ sedimentological and palaeoecological approaches to physically characterise the wetland basins and to gain a deeper understanding of how these wetlands have changed in response to past variability of climate and human land use practices. Multiple wetlands exist within the Mau Forests of Kenya that are ecologically and developmentally important to the region. Hydrologically, these swamps form significant surficial reservoirs of water that drain into extensive channel networks across East Africa and are an important component of the high elevation ‘water towers’ that are crucial to water management and the political imagining of nationally-important water resources. Historically, these wetlands have been key landscape features serving wildlife, livestock, and human populations with water particularly during dry periods. Few paleoenvironmental studies have been produced on the Mau Escarpment. The purpose of this study is to investigate these wetlands and examine how these ecosystems have responded to Late Quaternary climatic variability, large wildlife herbivory, and changes in human land use patterns. Continued scientific study is needed due to the diversity of wetland ecosystems across this landscape with strong environmental gradients and to analyse the varying spatial controls influencing the environmental conditions. This is especially true considering the multiple, recent, rapid and intense landscape transformations that have occurred. Some of these transformations include the industrial management of plantation forests, channelisation of wetlands, sediment infilling, road construction, increasing human populations, and conversion of forest to farmland. This document reports ongoing scientific study of the physical wetland systems and how the sites have evolved over geological time scales in response to climatic and land-use behavioural changes.

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ; Githumbi, E; Shoemaker, A; Degefa, AZ; Petek, N; van der Plas, GW; Muriuki, RM; Rucina, SM; Marchant, R. 2014. Ongoing sedimentological and palaeoecological investigations at Lielerai Kimana and Ormakau Swamps, Kajiado District, Kenya. A report to the local authorities of Kimana and Namelok, Olive Branch Mission Africa Operations, and the National Museums of Kenya Palaeobotany and Palynology Section. REAL contribution 001. 29 April, 2014. 32 p.
[PDF] [+ Abstract] [Hardcopy available at the IFRA library, Kileleshwa, Nairobi, Kenya]

This report summarizes fieldwork done by members of the REAL project who are studying wetlands in Kajiado District, southern Kenya, to understand how these systems have evolved through time. We employ sedimentological and palaeoecological approaches to physically characterise the swamp basins and to gain a deeper understanding of how these swamps have changed in response to past variability of climate and human land use practices. Multiple wetlands exist upon the semi-arid landscape of southern Kenya within the boundaries of the previous extent of Amboseli Lake that are ecologically and developmentally important to the region. Hydrologically, these swamps are recharged through groundwater flows from Mt Kilimanjaro, which are sensitive to climatic change and extraction pressure by nearby populations. Historically, these wetlands have been key landscape features serving wildlife, livestock, and human populations with water particularly during droughts. The multiple stakeholders within the area have vested and often competing interests regarding how these critical ecosystems should be managed in a sustainable framework for the future of these communities. Previous studies have shown that these wetlands are sensitive to late Holocene climatic variability, large wildlife herbivory, and changes in human land use patterns. Continued scientific study is needed due to the diversity of wetland ecosystems across this landscape and varying spatial controls influencing the environmental conditions. This is especially true considering the multiple, recent, rapid and intense landscape transformations that have occurred. Some of these transformations include the creation of societal and physical enclosures around wetlands, increasing human population, land subdivisions and tenure changes, fluctuations within the conservation and tourism industry, drainage for conversion to croplands and increases in irrigated agriculture wildlife and livestock population changes in the Amboseli basin, poaching, and declining wet montane forest cover on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. This document reports ongoing scientific study of the physical wetland systems and how the sites have evolved over geological time scales in response to climatic and land-use behavioural changes.

Posters:

Petek, N. (2015) The natural heritage of human occupation: How bomas shape the environment in Baringo, Kenya. At: African Heritage Challenges: Development and Sustainability, CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 15-16 May 2015 [PDF]

Petek, N. & Lane, P.(2014) Landscape and Population Resilience in the Lake Baringo Basin, Kenya, AD 800-1750 At: 14^th Congress of the Pan-African Archaeological Association, University of the Witwatersrand, 14-18 July 2014 [PDF]

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ; Deere, N; Githumbi, E; Marchant, R. 2014. Fire disturbance regimes and vegetation interactions in East Africa during the Late Quaternary [updated]. South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) – Royal Society, London, UK, October 6-7, 2014. [PDF] [JPEG]

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ; Deere, N; Githumbi, E; Marchant, R. 2014. Fire disturbance regimes and vegetation interactions in East Africa during the Late Quaternary. Open PAGES Focus 4 Workshop Human-Climate-Ecosystem Interactions, University of Leuven, Belgium, February 3-7, 2014.
[+ Abstract]

Human use of fire on the landscape has influenced vegetation composition, biomass abundance, and biodiversity in many ecosystems worldwide. Fire activity also has implications for carbon cycling and can result in a net carbon sink or source depending on the alteration of fire regimes and vegetation changes. The major controls of fire activity over centennial to millennial scales are dynamic and are further influenced by human land use and behavioral patterns and have shaped the modern ecosystems. It is often difficult to quantify the anthropogenic influence on biomass burning because the relative importance of natural controls of fire vary over multiple spatiotemporal scales and the analysis of detailed paleoecological data and human cultural information is necessary. Land use and burning practices have changed throughout the Holocene in East Africa and over the coming months we will be synthesizing multiple palaeoecological records of vegetation and fire activity to begin to disentangle the human influences on the environment. Modern biomass burning activity and rapid vegetation changes will be quantified using moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover grids (500-m resolution). Multiple records of biomass burning activity are needed to understand the natural controls on fire, such as climate, fuel types and abundance, and topography. The rise of pastoralist societies around 4000 cal yr BP represented a major shift in human impacts on vegetation, fuels, and ignition patterns. By analyzing the natural variability alongside archeological and historical data on human societies it may be possible to characterize the ecological impacts of human burning activities. Demographic changes impacted the environment variably over space and reflected the intensity of land use and the values of those societies. Synthesis of multiple records of biomass burning can be used to understand the broad-scale controls of fire activity. Comparative analysis of fire records at sites across environmental gradients provides insights into the relative importance of natural and anthropogenic controls of fire. Examination of natural and anthropogenic variability on vegetation and disturbance regimes helps us understand the evolution of human-environmental interactions and the processes that have led to the present landscapes. This information is critical to developing sustainable trajectories for land management policy and conservation efforts crucial to the future of East African landscapes experiencing development pressure and rapid climate change.

Githumbi, E; Courtney Mustaphi, CJ; Deere, N; Marchant, R. 2014. Long Term Ecosystem and Landscape Dynamics in East Africa. University of York Environment Department Post Graduate Conference. York, UK. February, 20-21, 2014.

Laboratory Protocols:

available here.

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