Bilma: A Menu for the Central Sahara - Present-Day and Holocene Food Resources and Food Strategies

Abstract

The Bilma-pollen record (NE-Niger)-reaching down to the Late Pleistocene- evidences that up to the 7th millennium BP the Central and a mixed plant cover out of Acacia-dominated savannas and some Sudanian vegetation units around lakes and along rivers. However, these Sudanian elements reached only to 20o N and disappeared around 5000 BP. The Acacia-Panicum –savannas - of various densities - dominated from that time on. Achabs (short time- grass and herb floras) could reach to large extensions and represented the aleatoric component of vegetation – and food resources. Climatically these regions were characterised by an intensive interaction of monsoon and harmattan giving chances for rainfall the year round. Fire was a permanent phenomenon in the various landscapes. People had two main sources for alimentation: As hunter-gatherer they could base on various plant resources and fishing and game. From surveys on the traditional plant use and alimentation in the desert of northern Niger we could estimate the collecting resources for the human population in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene