Radiocarbon dates for camelthorn trees in the Namib Desert reflect marked variation in rainfall during the last 1,000 years. These records and other proxy climate data indicate a loose teleconnection with the southern African climatic record, especially for regionwide episodes of dry conditions resulting from extreme El Niño events. However, archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherer and nomadic pastoralist occupation does not mirror the climate record by indicating that the desert was only inhabited during periods of favourable rainfall. It points instead to a specialized strategy which allowed continuous occupation of the Namib Desert despite extreme fluctuations in rainfall, by combining the use of primary resource areas with opportunistic use of secondary, ephemeral resources in an alternating density-dependent and density-independent dynamic. Keywords: Namib Desert, climate proxy, density dependence/independence, Hunter-gatherers, pastoralists.