This dataset is associated with Phelps et al. (2020, DOI: 10.1111/ecog.04990), and is comprised of paleoecological information from African subfossil pollen assemblages over the past 20,000 years. Data includes the following information:Appendix 1: a list of collated sites from the APD, EPD, and other publicationsAppendix 2: a list of collated entities from the APD, EPD, and other publicationsAppendix 3: a list of citations for each entity in appendix 2, whether analyzed or notAppendix 4: a harmonized taxa list with original taxa names and numbersAppendix 5: a list of collated samples from the APD, EPD, and other publicationsAppendix 6: a list of counts from the APD, EPD, ACER, and other publicationsAppendix 7: a list of dates (14C, etc) from the APD, EPD, ACER, and other publicationsAppendix 8: a list of CLAM outputs calculated (Blaauw 2010) from the list of radiocarbon datesAppendix 9: a harmonized biomization scheme for "direct" and "indirect" methodsFor use of these datasets, associated publications (see appendix 3) and databases should be cited:The African Pollen Database (APD: Vincens et al. 2007, http://fpd.sedoo.fr/fpd/bibli.do)The European Pollen Database (EPD: Fyfe et al. 2009, http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net/getdata/)The ACER Pollen and Charcoal Database (Sánchez Goñi et al. 2017)Additional information was added to these appendices in association with the following publications (note: information was extracted from publications and/or contributed by authors): Brenac 1988, Burrough & Willis 2015, Chase et al. 2015b, Cheddadi et al. 2015, 2016, 2017, Cordova et al. 2017, Giresse et al. 1994, Lim et al. 2016, Maley 1991, Maley & Brenac 1998, Metwally et al. 2014, Quick et al. 2016, 2018, Valsecchi et al. 2013, Waller et al. 2007. The harmonized biomization scheme (appendix 9), is based on six primary publications: Jolly et al. 1998, Elenga et al. 2000, Vincens et al. 2006, Vincens et al. 2007, Lebamba et al. 2009, Lézine et al. 2009, with reference to the African Plant Database (version 3.4.0).