Ancient human settlements play an important role in creating heterogeneous African savanna ecosystems through forming nutrient hotspots with increased biodiversity and improved forage quality. However, plant community development and herbivore utilization of these sites after abandonment remain poorly understood. We compared plant and soil parameters in ancient human settlements with off-sites locations. In addition, we set camera traps in ancient settlements and surrounding vegetation to determine their use by herbivores. Grass basal cover, height, biomass and species diversity in ancient settlements had recovered to similar levels with the surrounding landscape. Ancient settlements had small trees (in terms of height and canopy volume), lower tree density and lower species diversity than the surrounding landscape. Soil phosphorus and calcium were higher in ancient settlements than surrounding landscape, while pH, nitrogen, potassium, magnesium and sodium were similar between the two sites. Impala and greater kudu camera sightings were higher in ancient settlements than surrounding vegetation, while warthogs showed no preferential foraging between ancient settlements and surrounding vegetation. We conclude that ancient settlements created functional heterogeneity through altering the structure of savanna vegetation influencing foraging patterns of herbivores such as impala.

古代人类住区通过形成生物多样性增加和饲料质量提高的营养热点，在创建非洲稀树草原异质生态系统方面发挥着重要作用。然而，人们对这些废弃地点的植物群落发展和食草动物利用仍然知之甚少。我们将古代人类住区与异地的植物和土壤参数进行了比较。此外，我们还在古代定居点和周围植被中设置了相机陷阱，以确定食草动物对它们的使用情况。古代聚落的草底覆盖度、高度、生物量和物种多样性已恢复到与周围景观相似的水平。与周围景观相比，古代定居点的树木较小（就高度和树冠体积而言），树木密度较低，物种多样性较低。古代聚落的土壤磷和钙含量高于周围景观，而两个地点的 pH、氮、钾、镁和钠含量相似。古代定居点中黑斑羚和大捻角羚的目击率高于周围植被，而疣猪在古代定居点和周围植被之间没有表现出优先觅食的情况。我们得出的结论是，古代定居点通过改变稀树草原植被的结构，影响黑斑羚等食草动物的觅食模式，创造了功能异质性。