Applying Landscape DNA Concepts to Understanding Long-term Human-Environment Coevolution in the Middle Belt

The concept of landscape DNA, referring to the persistent structural legacies that past human-environment interactions imprint on contemporary landscapes and that can be read archaeologically and geographically across long time scales, offers a powerful theoretical tool for integrating archaeological, ecological, and geographical data in the study of long-term human-environment coevolution. This dissertation applies landscape DNA concepts to the Middle Belt of Nigeria, one of the world's most ecologically diverse regions, to reconstruct ten thousand years of human-environment coevolution using a theoretically novel and methodologically integrated research programme. The empirical programme synthesizes remote sensing analysis of contemporary landscape structure, geoarchaeological investigation of palaeosol and geomorphological sequences at twelve study sites, archaeobotanical analysis, radiocarbon chronology construction, and oral historical landscape memory collection across the zone. Three landscape DNA signatures are identified and analysed: the inherited agricultural terrace and water management infrastructure of the Jos Plateau and Mandara Mountain margins; the spatial pattern of sacred grove preservation within an otherwise heavily modified agricultural matrix; and the distribution of iron-enriched soils marking the locations of now-invisible past smelting sites. Analysis demonstrates that each of these signatures represents a persistent legacy of past human agency that continues to influence present land use, ecological composition, and community identity, providing material evidence for deep human-landscape coevolutionary relationships. The dissertation's theoretical contribution includes the operationalization of landscape DNA for data-poor contexts through a multi-proxy detection framework applicable across tropical African landscapes. Keywords: landscape DNA, human-environment coevolution, Middle Belt, long-term archaeology, landscape legacy.