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This rapid communication describes a lithic blade that was recently recovered during excavations in the Velondriake Marine Protected Area in southwest Madagascar. This represents the only recorded archaeological lithic blade recovered from southwest Madagascar. The blade was recoveredin situat a depth of 1.66 m, a deposit dating to between 750 and 1200 BP at site G134, adjacent to the modern village of Antsaragnasoa. While similar in material choice (translucent-brown chert) and morphology (parallel-sided blade) to other lithics recovered at the northern sites of Ambohiposa and Lakaton’i Anja, it is significantly larger than other recorded lithics on Madagascar. More research is required but this finding suggests that lithic technology may have been more widespread on the island, particularly among coastal communities, than previously thought.

The year 2020 was an awakening for some. For others, it reiterated the persistent social injustice in the United States. Compelled by these events, 30 diverse individuals came together from January to May 2021 for a semester-long seminar exploring inequity in archaeological practice. The seminar's discussions spotlighted the inequity and social injustices that are deeply embedded within the discipline. However, inequity in archaeology is often ignored or treated narrowly as discrete, if loosely bound, problems. A broad approach to inequity in archaeology revealed injustice to be intersectional, with compounding effects. Through the overarching themes of individual, community, theory, and practice, we (a subset of the seminar's participants) explore inequity and its role in various facets of archaeology, including North–South relations, publication, resource distribution, class differences, accessibility, inclusive theories, service to nonarchaeological communities, fieldwork, mentorship, and more. We focus on creating a roadmap for understanding the intersectionality of issues of inequity and suggesting avenues for continued education and direct engagement. We argue that community-building—by providing mutual support and building alliances—provides a pathway for realizing greater equity in our discipline.

Narratives of landscape degradation are often linked to unsustainable fire use by local communities. Madagascar is a case in point: the island is considered globally exceptional, with its remarkable endemic biodiversity viewed as threatened by unsustainable anthropogenic fire. Yet, fire regimes on Madagascar have not been empirically characterised or globally contextualised. Here, we contribute a comparative approach to determining relationships between regional fire regimes and global patterns and trends, applied to Madagascar using MODIS remote sensing data (2003–2019). Rather than a global exception, we show that Madagascar's fire regimes are similar to 88% of tropical burned area with shared climate and vegetation characteristics, and can be considered a microcosm of most tropical fire regimes. From 2003–2019, landscape-scale fire declined across tropical grassy biomes (17%–44% excluding Madagascar), and on Madagascar at a relatively fast rate (36%–46%). Thus, high tree loss anomalies on the island (1.25–4.77× the tropical average) were not explained by any general expansion of landscape-scale fire in grassy biomes. Rather, tree loss anomalies centred in forests, and could not be explained by landscape-scale fire escaping from savannas into forests. Unexpectedly, the highest tree loss anomalies on Madagascar (4.77×) occurred in environments without landscape-scale fire, where the role of small-scale fires (

In a recent paper published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, John Terrell (2020) objected to the proposition that islands can offer model systems to study human behavior and ecodyn...

The significant economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced archaeologists to consider the concept of resilience in the present day, as it relates to their profession, students, research projects, cultural heritage, and the livelihoods and well-being of the communities with a stake in the sites they study. The global crisis presents an opportunity to cement archaeological practice in a foundation of community building. We can learn from the ancestors, razana, how investing in community—social networks at different scales—makes us more resilient to crises. In so doing, we can improve the quality and equity of the science we produce and ensure relevant outcomes for living communities and future generations.

How early human foragers impacted insular forests is a topic with implications across multiple disciplines, including resource management. Paradoxically, terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene impacts of foraging communities have been characterized as both extreme-as in debates over human-driven faunal extinctions-and minimal compared to later landscape transformations by farmers and herders. We investigated how rainforest hunter-gatherers managed resources in montane New Guinea and present some of the earliest documentation of Late Pleistocene through mid-Holocene exploitation of cassowaries (Aves: Casuariidae). Worldwide, most insular ratites were extirpated by the Late Holocene, following human arrivals, including elephant birds of Madagascar (Aepyornithidae) and moa of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Dinornithiformes)-icons of anthropogenic island devastation. Cassowaries are exceptional, however, with populations persisting in New Guinea and Australia. Little is known of past human exploitation and what factors contributed to their survival. We present a method for inferring past human interaction with mega-avifauna via analysis of microstructural features of archaeological eggshell. We then contextualize cassowary hunting and egg harvesting by montane foragers and discuss the implications of human exploitation. Our data suggest cassowary egg harvesting may have been more common than the harvesting of adults. Furthermore, our analysis of cassowary eggshell microstructural variation reveals a distinct pattern of harvesting eggs in late ontogenetic stages. Harvesting eggs in later stages of embryonic growth may reflect human dietary preferences and foraging seasonality, but the observed pattern also supports the possibility that-as early as the Late Pleistocene-people were collecting eggs in order to hatch and rear cassowary chicks.

Climate drying could have transformed ecosystems in southern Madagascar during recent millennia by contributing to the extinction of endemic megafauna. However, the extent of regional aridification during the past 2000 years is poorly known, as are the responses of endemic animals and economically important livestock to drying. We inferred ~1600 years of climate change around Lake Ranobe, SW Madagascar, using oxygen isotope analyses of monospecific freshwater ostracods (Bradleystrandesia cf. fuscata) and elemental analyses of lake core sediment. We inferred past changes in habitat and diet of introduced and extinct endemic megaherbivores using bone collagen stable isotope and 14C datasets (n = 63). Extinct pygmy hippos and multiple giant lemur species disappeared from the vicinity of Ranobe during a dry interval ~1000–700 cal yr BP, but the simultaneous appearance of introduced cattle, high charcoal concentrations, and other evidence of human activity confound inference of drought-driven extirpations. Unlike the endemic megafauna, relatively low collagen stable nitrogen isotope values among cattle suggest they survived dry intervals by exploiting patches of wet habitat. Although megafaunal extirpations coincided with drought in SW Madagascar, coupled data from bone and lake sediments do not support the hypothesis that extinct megafauna populations collapsed solely because of drought. Given that the reliance of livestock on mesic patches will become more important in the face of projected climate drying, we argue that sustainable conservation of spiny forests in SW Madagascar should support local livelihoods by ensuring that zebu have access to mesic habitat. Additionally, the current interactions between pastoralism and riparian habitats should be studied to help conserve the island’s biodiversity.

Recently expanded estimates for when humans arrived on Madagascar (up to approximately 10 000 years ago) highlight questions about the causes of the island's relatively late megafaunal extinctions (approximately 2000–500 years ago). Introduced domesticated animals could have contributed to extinctions, but the arrival times and past diets of exotic animals are poorly known. To conduct the first explicit test of the potential for competition between introduced livestock and extinct endemic megafauna in southern and western Madagascar, we generated new radiocarbon and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from the bone collagen of introduced ungulates (zebu cattle, ovicaprids and bushpigs,n= 66) and endemic megafauna (pygmy hippopotamuses, giant tortoises and elephant birds,n= 68), and combined these data with existing data from endemic megafauna (n= 282, including giant lemurs). Radiocarbon dates confirm that introduced and endemic herbivores briefly overlapped chronologically in this region between 1000 and 800 calibrated years before present (cal BP). Moreover, stable isotope data suggest that goats, tortoises and hippos had broadly similar diets or exploited similar habitats. These data support the potential for both direct and indirect forms of competition between introduced and endemic herbivores. We argue that competition with introduced herbivores, mediated by opportunistic hunting by humans and exacerbated by environmental change, contributed to the late extinction of endemic megafauna on Madagascar.

In this paper, we advocate a collaborative approach to investigating past human–environment interactions in southwest Madagascar. We do so by critically reflecting as a team on the development of the Morombe Archaeological Project, initiated in 2011 as a collaboration between an American archaeologist and the Vezo communities of the Velondriake Marine Protected Area. Our objectives are to assess our trajectory in building collaborative partnerships with diverse local, indigenous, and descendent communities and to provide concrete suggestions for the development of new collaborative projects in environmental archaeology. Through our Madagascar case study, we argue that contemporary environmental and economic challenges create an urgency to articulate and practice an inclusive environmental archaeology, and we propose that environmental archaeologists must make particular efforts to include local, indigenous, and descendent communities. Finally, we assert that full collaboration involves equal power sharing and mutual knowledge exchange and suggest an approach for critical self-evaluation of collaborative projects.

OBJECTIVES. With our diverse training, theoretical and empirical toolkits, and rich data, evolutionary and biological anthropologists (EBAs) have much to contribute to research and policy decisions about climate change and other pressing social issues. However, we remain largely absent from these critical, ongoing efforts. Here, we draw on the literature and our own experiences to make recommendations for how EBAs can engage broader audiences, including the communities with whom we collaborate, a more diverse population of students, researchers in other disciplines and the development sector, policymakers, and the general public. These recommendations include: (1) playing to our strength in longitudinal, place-based research, (2) collaborating more broadly, (3) engaging in greater public communication of science, (4) aligning our work with open-science practices to the extent possible, and (5) increasing diversity of our field and teams through intentional action, outreach, training, and mentorship. CONCLUSIONS. We EBAs need to put ourselves out there: research and engagement are complementary, not opposed to each other. With the resources and workable examples we provide here, we hope to spur more EBAs to action.

BACKGROUND Communities in southwest Madagascar have co-evolved with a hypervariable environment and climate. The paleoclimate record reflects major fluctuations in climatic conditions over the course of Holocene human settlement. Archeological evidence indicates short-term occupations of sites, suggesting that frequent residential mobility and flexible subsistence strategies have been central features of life on the southwest coast for millennia. Today, despite rapid changes linked to globalization and increasing market integration, mobility and subsistence flexibility remain key to the lives of communities of the region. AIMS In this article, we advocate closer consideration of the social dimensions of the human niche, and their inextricable links to the biophysical world. Specifically, we explore the theoretical implications of applying a Niche Construction Theory framework to understanding the role of social memory in constructing the human niche of SW Madagascar. We look at how social memory facilitates mobility, resource use, and the creation and maintenance of social identities and ties among communities of foragers, farmers, herders, and fishers living under hypervariable climatic conditions. MATERIALS & METHODS We conducted an extensive oral history survey in SW Madagascar between 2017 and 2018. We interviewed over 100 elders from 32 different communities. RESULTS Our analysis of the oral history archive resulted in the development of a theoretical model of human niche construction centered on the maintenance and transmission of social memory. DISCUSSION We argue that social memory and the ability to transmit oral histories of exchange, reciprocity, and cooperation, as well as ecological knowledge are key adaptive mechanisms that facilitate mobility and access to resources in a hypervariable environment. CONCLUSION The preservation and transmission of oral histories and ecological knowledge are thus critical to future resilience and sustainability.

Climate change impacts island communities all over the world. Sea-level rise, an increase in the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, and changes in distribution and health of marine organisms are among the most significant processes affecting island communities worldwide. On islands of the Caribbean and southwestern Indian Ocean (SWIO), however, today’s climate change impacts are magnified by historical environmental injustice and colonial legacies, which have heightened the vulnerability of human and other biotic communities. For some islands, archaeological and paleoecological research offers an important record of precolonial climate change and its interplay with human lives and landscapes. The archaeological record suggests strategies and mechanisms that can inform discussions of resilience in the face of climate change. We detail climate-related challenges facing island Caribbean and SWIO communities using archaeological and paleoecological evidence for past climate change and human response and argue that these cannot be successfully addressed without an understanding of the processes that have, over time, disrupted livelihoods, reshaped land- and seascapes, threatened intergenerational ecological knowledge transfer, and led to increased inequality and climate vulnerability.

Despite decades of archaeological research, roughly 75% of Madagascar's land area remains archaeologically unexplored and the oldest sites on the island are difficult to locate, as they contain the ephemeral remains of mobile hunter/forager campsites. The known archaeological record is therefore biased toward later sites, especially sites dating to the second millennium AD, following the expansion of Indian Ocean trading networks. Systematic archaeological investigations are required to address these biases in the known archaeological record and clarify the island's early human history, but funding limitations, logistical and time constraints in surveying large areas and a relatively small number of active field archaeologists present substantial barriers to expansive areal survey coverage. Using theoretical models derived from human behavioral ecology (i.e., ideal free distribution, optimal foraging theory) in conjunction with freely available remote sensing data, we illustrate how archaeological survey of Madagascar's landscapes can be rapidly expanded, more effectively target early archaeological deposits, and address questions about the island's settlement. This study illustrates the potential for theoretically-driven satellite-based remote sensing analysis to improve our understanding of the archaeological record of the world's fourth largest island.

The impact of resource exploitation by ancient human communities on Madagascar's environment is an area of intense debate. A fundamental question in the archaeology of Madagascar is the extent to which arrival of settlers, introduction of non-native plants and animals, and subsequent human exploitation of island biota, which catalyzed declines in biodiversity and significantly degraded environmental conditions. Fine-grained datasets, including zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical and other ecological evidence, are needed to assess the relationship between human resource exploitation and environmental change. On Madagascar, the resolution of zooarchaeological datasets is often reduced by poor preservation of faunal remains, making precise taxonomic identifications difficult, and few projects to-date have comprehensively assessed zooarchaeological data. Here, we present zooarchaeological data from three coastal villages in the Velondriake Marine Protected Area in southwest Madagascar, where human occupation spans from ca. 1400 BP to the present. Faunal remains from the Late Holocene sites of Antsaragnagnangy and Antsaragnasoa were identified using morphological analysis of remains, and a PCR-based bulk bone metabarcoding approach was applied at Andamotibe to molecularly identify fish and other vertebrates in a faunal assemblage that was particularly fragmented. Results were interpreted and contextualized using modern data on local fish diversity, climate and anthropogenic impacts on marine and estuarine habitats, as well as modern fishing practices (including preferred fishing grounds, tackle, taxonomic representation and volume of catch). Our use of multiple analytical and interpretative approaches has provided the most highly resolved view to date of past human subsistence in coastal southwest Madagascar. We contend that future research into human-environment dynamics on Madagascar should make use of diverse analytical methods, in order to more comprehensively evaluate past interactions between human communities and the native biota. Furthermore, we encourage an historical ecological approach, so that long-term perspectives on changing human-environment dynamics may be used to contextualize modern trends.

Archaeological eggshell is a commonly recorded, yet underutilized material for understanding human-environment interaction in the past. In addition to the use of archaeological eggshell as a paleoenvironmental proxy, archaeologists have innovated important new approaches to the study of archaeological avian eggshell, including the application of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the characterization of eggshell microstructures. These studies have demonstrated the importance of eggshell for understanding how ancient communities exploited and interacted with avifauna. In this paper, we build on these methodological advances by testing new approaches to image avian eggshell and characterizing complex eggshell surface microstructures. We demonstrate the utility of capturing high-resolution 3-dimensional (3D) eggshell surfaces using advanced imaging modalities (optical profilometry, scanning electron microscopy, digital microscopy, computed tomography), to model changes in eggshell microstructures that are correlated with ontogeny. Using the Common Ostrich (Struthio camelus) as our model system, we introduce a statistical modeling approach to predict the ontogenetic age of ratite eggshell using roughness measurements of 3D features. Successful prediction of ontogenetic age has great potential to reveal archaeological patterns of human exploitation of avian eggs. These findings further illustrate the importance of archaeological eggshell for investigating human-environment interactions, emphasizing the need for archaeologists to use field methods (hand/trowel excavation and fine mesh screen) that facilitate eggshell recovery.

Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.

Moving into montane rainforests was a unique behavioural innovation developed by Pleistocene Homo sapiens as they expanded out of Africa and through Southeast Asia and Sahul for the first time. However, faunal sequences from these environments that shed light on past hunting practices are rare. In this paper we assess zooarchaeological evidence from Yuku and Kiowa, two sites that span that Pleistocene to Holocene boundary in the New Guinea Highlands. We present new AMS radiocarbon dates and a revision of the stratigraphic sequences for these sites, and examine millennial-scale changes to vertebrate faunal composition based on NISP, MNI, and linear morphometric data to shed light on variability in hunting practices, processes of natural cave deposition, and the local palaeoenvironment at the end of the LGM through to the Late Holocene. We show that Yuku was first occupied at least c. 17,500 years ago and that Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene hunters targeted a wide range of small-bodied and agile species from the mid-montane forest, with a particular focus on cuscus (Phalanger spp.). At Kiowa, occupied from around 12,000 years ago, a similar range of species were targeted, but with an added emphasis on specialised Dobsonia magna fruit bat hunting. We then integrate other zooarchaeological data from the wider Highlands zone to build a model of generalist-specialist hunting dynamics and examine how this more broadly contributes to our understanding of tropical foraging during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.

Taxonomic identification of archaeological fish bones provides important insights into the subsistence practices of ancient coastal peoples. However, it can be difficult to execute robust morphological identification of fish bones from species-rich fossil assemblages, especially from post-cranial material with few distinguishing features. Fragmentation, weathering and burning further impede taxonomic identification, resulting in large numbers of unidentifiable bones from archaeological sites. This limitation can be somewhat mitigated by taking an ancient DNA (aDNA) bulk-bone metabarcoding (BBM) approach to faunal identification, where DNA from non-diagnostic bone fragments is extracted and sequenced in parallel. However, a large proportion of fishing communities (both past and present) live in tropical regions that have sub-optimal conditions for long-term aDNA preservation. To date, the BBM method has never been applied to fish bones before, or to fossils excavated from an exposed context within a tropical climate. Here, we demonstrate that morphologically indistinct bulk fish bone from the tropics can be identified by sequencing aDNA extracted from 100 to 300 ya archaeological midden material in southwest Madagascar. Despite the biases of the approach, we rapidly obtained family, genus, and species-level assemblage information, and used this to describe a subset of the ichthyofauna exploited by an 18th century fishing community. We identified 23 families of fish, including benthic, pelagic, and coral-dwelling fishes, suggesting a reliance on a variety of marine and brackish habitats. When possible, BBM should be used alongside osteological approaches to address the limitations of both; however, this study highlights how genetic methods can nevertheless be a valuable tool for helping resolve faunal assemblages when morphological identification is hindered by taphonomic processes, lack of adequate comparative collections, and time constraints, and can provide a temporal perspective on fish biodiversity in the context of accelerated exploitation of the marine environment.

Shellfish represent an important component of human diet, especially for coastal communities, and shells are integral to a wide range of activities and social interactions. In addition to providing rich information on questions of subsistence, daily and ritual practices, and trade and exchange, shellfish remains serve as sensitive paleoecological indicators of changes in climate and environment. The exploitation of shellfish by ancient communities is a well-studied field in archaeology; however, little has been published to date with regard to shellfish exploitation—either in the past or present—in Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world. This article presents the first detailed description of archaeological shellfish assemblages from Madagascar. These assemblages were recovered from the excavation of several archaeological sites located in the southwest's Velondriake Marine Protected Area. The archaeological record of Velondriake spans the period from ca. cal AD 600 to cal AD 1900, mak...

Landscape archaeology has a long history of using predictive models to improve our knowledge of extant archaeological features around the world. Important advancements in spatial statistics, however, have been slow to enter archaeological predictive modeling. Point process models (PPMs), in particular, offer a powerful solution to explicitly model both first- and second-order properties of a point pattern. Here, we use PPMs to refine a recently developed remote sensing-based predictive algorithm applied to the archaeological record of Madagascar&rsquo, s southwestern coast. This initial remote sensing model resulted in an 80% true positive rate, rapidly expanding our understanding of the archaeological record of this region. Despite the model&rsquo, s success rate, it yielded a substantial number (~20%) of false positive results. In this paper, we develop a series of PPMs to improve the accuracy of this model in predicting the location of archaeological deposits in southwest Madagascar. We illustrate how PPMs, traditional ecological knowledge, remote sensing, and fieldwork can be used iteratively to improve the accuracy of predictive models and enhance interpretations of the archaeological record. We use an explicit behavioral ecology theoretical framework to formulate and test hypotheses utilizing spatial modeling methods. Our modeling process can be replicated by archaeologists around the world to assist in fieldwork logistics and planning.

The human communities and ecosystems of island and coastal southeast Africa face significant and linked ecological threats. Socioecological conditions of concern to communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and researchers include declining agricultural productivity, deforestation, introductions of non-native flora and fauna, coastal erosion and sedimentation, damage to marine environments, illegal fishing, overfishing, waste pollution, salinization of freshwater supplies, and rising energy demands, among others. Human-environment challenges are connected to longer, often ignored, histories of social and ecological dynamics in the region. We argue that these challenges are more effectively understood and addressed within a longer-term historical ecology framework. We reviewed cases from Madagascar, coastal Kenya, and the Zanzibar Archipelago of fisheries, deforestation, and management of human waste to encourage increased engagement among historical ecologists, conservation scientists, and policy makers. These case studies demonstrate that by widening the types and time depths of data sets we used to investigate and address current socioecological challenges, our interpretations of their causes and strategies for their mitigation varied significantly.Perspectivas Históricas sobre las Dinámicas Contemporáneas entre Humanos y el Ambiente en el Sureste de África Resumen Las comunidades humanas y los ecosistemas de las costas del sureste africano enfrentan amenazas ecológicas significativas y vinculadas. Las condiciones socio-ecológicas que preocupan a las comunidades, los gobiernos, las organizaciones no gubernamentales y a los investigadores incluyen la poductividad agrícola en declinación, la deforestación, la introducción de flora y fauna no nativa, la sedimentación y erosión costera, el daño hacia los ecosistemas marinos, la pesca ilegal, la sobrepesca, la contaminación por desechos, la salinización de las cuencas de agua dulce, y la creciente demanda de energía, entre otras. Los retos humanos - ecosistema están conectados con historias más largas, y frecuentemente ignoradas, de dinámicas sociales y ecológicas en la región. Argumentamos que estos retos se entienden y se tratan con mayor efectividad dentro de un marco de trabajo de ecología histórica con un periodo más largo. Revisamos casos de pesquerías, deforestación y manejo de desechos humanos en Madagascar, la costa de Kenia y el archipiélago de Zanzíbar para propiciar una mayor participación entre los ecologistas históricos, los científicos de la conservación, y los legisladores. Estos estudios de caso demuestran que al ampliar los tipos y la temporalidad de los conjuntos de datos que usamos para investigar y tratar los retos socio-ecológicos contemporáneos, nuestras interpretaciones de las causas de estos retos y las estrategias para su mitigación variaron significativamente.

Madagascar is an exceptional example of island biogeography. Though a large island, Madagascar’s landmass is small relative to other places in the world with comparable levels of biodiversity, endemicity, and topographic and climatic variation. Moreover, the timing of Madagascar’s human colonization and the social-ecological trajectories that followed human arrival make the island a unique case study for understanding the dynamic relationship between humans, environment, and climate. These changes are most famously illustrated by the mass extinction of the island’s megafauna but also include a range of other developments. Given the chronological confluence of human arrival and dramatic transformations of island ecologies, one of the most important overarching questions for research on Madagascar is how best to understand the interconnections between human communities, the environment, and climate. In this review paper, we contribute to the well-established discussion of this complex question by highlighting the potential for new multidisciplinary research collaborations in the southwest part of the island. Specifically, we promote the comparison of paleoclimate indicators from securely dated archaeological and paleontological contexts with Western Indian Ocean climate records, as a productive way to improve the overall resolution of paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstruction for the island. Given new archaeological findings that more than double the length of Madagascar’s human occupation, models of environmental transformation post-human arrival must be reassessed and allow for the possibility of slower and more varied rates of change. Improving the spatial and temporal resolution of paleoclimate reconstruction is critical in distinguishing anthropogenic and climate drivers of environmental change. It will also increase our capacity to leverage archaeological and paleoclimate research toward resolving modern challenges, such as environmental conservation and poverty alleviation.

The timing of the human settlement of Madagascar, one of the last large landmasses to be settled by people, remains a key topic of debate in archaeology. Despite decades of research, recent estimates for initial settlement are increasingly divergent and span ca. 9000 years: the widest colonization window for any island within the reliable range of radiocarbon (14C) dating. 14C dating of archaeological sites and remains of butchered animals provide important evidence of when the island was first settled, but the reliability of these dates requires critical evaluation. Applying principles of chronometric hygiene, we present the first systematic review of Madagascar's14C chronology to clarify the island's settlement. Our findings support human presence by at least 2000 cal BP and suggest that an Early Holocene arrival is possible. The nature of such an early presence on the island, however, remains elusive due to a lack of contextual information.