Homo sapiens emerged in Africa in the Middle Pleistocene, and their appearance broadly overlaps with the onset of the Middle Stone Age (MSA). This period saw a persistent population expansion into a wide range of ecosystems, including deserts, rainforests, and mountains. To develop such ecological flexibility, early humans had to adapt their subsistence strategies to markedly different and dynamic environments that dramatically affected their lifeways. However, we know surprisingly little about the timing and modes of H. sapiens dispersal within Africa. To address this issue at subcontinental scale, PEOPLE will look at South African ecosystems that offer ways of assessing human response to climate change. One key factor affecting this response is freshwater availability. Water played a crucial role in human adaptation since it determined the foraging activities of people across the open landscape and thus had pervasive influence over their expansion on the continent. In the interior of South Africa, which features a mosaic of diverse grasslands and arid shrublands dissected by sporadic rivers, ancient water courses and wetlands provided early humans with favourable conditions and possible dispersal routes.