East African landscapes today are the result of the cumulative effects of climate and land-use change over millennial timescales. In this review, we compile archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data from East Africa to document land cover change, environmental, subsistence and land use transitions over the past 6000 years. Throughout East Africa there have been a series of relatively rapid and high magnitude environmental shifts characterised by changing hydrological budgets during the Holocene. For example, pronounced environmental shifts that manifested as a marked change in the rainfall or seasonality and subsequent hydrological budget throughout East Africa occurred around 4000, 800 and 300 radiocarbon years before present (yr BP). The past 6000 years have also seen numerous shifts in human interactions with East African ecologies. From the mid Holocene, anthropogenic land use has both diversified and increased exponentially associated with the arrival of new subsistence systems, crops, migrants and technologies, giving rise to a sequence of significant phases of land cover change. The first large scale human influences began to occur around 4000 yr BP, associated with the introduction of domesticated livestock and the expansion of pastoral communities. The first widespread and intensive forest clearances were associated with the arrival of iron-using early farming communities around 2500 yr BP, particularly in productive and easy to clear mid-altitudinal areas. Extensive and pervasive land cover change has been associated with population growth, immigration and movement of people. The expansion of trading routes between the interior and the coast starting around 1300 yr BP and intensifying in the 18th and 19th centuries, was one such process. These caravan routes possibly acted as conduits for spreading New World crops such as maize (Zea mays), tobacco and tomatoes, although the processes and timing of their introduction remains poorly documented. The introduction of SE Asian domesticates, especially banana, rice, taro, and chicken, via transoceanic biological transfers around and across the Indian Ocean, from at least around 1300 yr BP, and potentially significantly earlier, also had profound social and ecological consequences across parts of the region.

Through an interdisciplinary synthesis of information, we explore the different drivers and directions of land cover change, the associated environmental history and multiple interactions with the distribution of various cultures, technologies, and subsistence strategies through time and across space in East Africa. This review suggests topics for targeted future research that focus on areas and/or time periods where our understanding of the interaction between people, the environment and land cover change are most contentious and/or poorly resolved. The review also critiques how this perspective on regional land use change can be used to inform and provide perspective for contemporary issues such as climate and ecosystem change models, conservation and the achievement of nature based solutions to development.

今天的东非景观是千禧年尺度上气候和土地利用变化的累积影响的结果。在本文中，我们收集了来自东非的考古和古环境数据，以记录过去6000年的土地覆盖变化，环境，生计和土地使用的变化。在整个东非，出现了一系列相对较快和高度的环境变化，其特征是全新世期间水文预算的变化。例如，整个东非的显着环境变化表现为降雨或季节的明显变化以及随后的水文预算，发生在距今约4000、800和300年的放射性碳年代之前（BP年）。在过去的6000年中，人类与东非生态系统的互动也发生了许多变化。从全新世中期开始，与新的生计系统，农作物，移民和技术的到来有关的人为土地利用既多样化，又呈指数增长，从而导致一系列重要的土地覆盖变化阶段。最早的大规模人类影响开始出现在4000年BP附近，这与引入家畜和扩大牧民社区有关。最早的广泛而密集的森林砍伐与大约2500年BP之前使用铁的早期农业社区的到来有关，特别是在生产性且易于清除的中海拔地区。广泛而普遍的土地覆盖变化与人口增长，移民和人员流动有关。大约在1300年BP开始并在18和19世纪加剧的内陆和沿海之间贸易路线的扩张就是其中之一。这些商队路线可能充当了传播新世界农作物（如玉米）的管道（玉米，烟草和西红柿，尽管它们的引入过程和时间安排尚未得到充分记录。至少从1300年BP左右（可能更早）开始，通过跨洋生物转移在印度洋周围以及整个印度洋引入东南亚的驯养物，特别是香蕉，大米，芋头和鸡肉，这也对整个地区产生了深远的社会和生态影响该地区。

通过信息的跨学科综合，我们探索了东非跨越时间和跨空间的不同驱动因素和土地覆被变化的方向，相关的环境历史以及各种文化，技术和生存策略的分布之间的多重相互作用。这篇评论为有针对性的未来研究提出了一些主题，这些主题着重于我们对人，环境和土地覆盖变化之间的相互作用的理解最具争议性和/或解决不力的领域和/或时间段。审查还批评了如何将这种关于区域土地利用变化的观点用于为当代问题提供信息并提供观点，例如气候和生态系统变化模型，保护和实现基于自然的发展解决方案。