Desertification, sustainability, and archaeology: Indications from the past for an African future

The spread of food-producing economies among Saharan communities is generally characterised by the choice of pastoralism rather other economical strategies, in particular agriculture. The sustainability of phenomenon justifis the hypothesis that the choice is based on its effective advantage in terms of subsistence stability. Follwing this hypothesis, the authors tried to test the feedback of both pastoral and agricultural economic models to climatic changes, having as samples the prehistoric central Sahara and six modern countries in the Sahelian belt. This study can be the revelance beyond archaeological reconstructions, for scholars involved in evaluating human-environment relations, and dealing with developing projects in marginal and semi-arid landscapes.