CLIMATIC VARIABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE HOLOCENE EPOCH IN WEST AFRICA: A DISCUSSION OF PALEOENVIRONMENTAL AND PALEOCLIMATIC CHANGES IN THE PAST 10,000 YEARS

This paper examines the paleoenvironment and paleoclimatic variability and change of West
Africa for the past 10,000 years. It makes critical attempts to retrieve, distill, and discuss relevant
findings that give substantial clues to climatic changes in West Africa in the Holocene period. These
findings are from multidisciplinary fields such as archaeology, geography, climatology, geology,
history, botany amongst others. They point out incontrovertibly that the climate of West Africa has
experienced changes in the past. Archaeological findings indicate strongly that the region has rich
ecology and it is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate changes. The methodology of
study engages in critical eclectic assemblage and review of diverse information, data and findings that
shed light on the paleoenvironment of West Africa. The study unearths, distills, documents, and discusses
the various aspects of the past ecology of the region. Research findings reveal that the study of climatic
variability in West Africa provides sufficient findings on interconnectivity between human beings and
environment. The conclusion from this study indicates that there are clear evidences of climatic changes
in the study area and that these are in the archaeological, geographical, and geological records. The
paper concluded that the past climatic variabilities and changes in West Africa give the region its
present unique identity.