Buried lake sediments and tufa strandlines of Holocene age provide evidence of a former lake in the Selima Oasis depression, northwest Sudan, near the hyperarid core of the eastern Sahara Desert. A 1.6 m section through laminated lake muds and precipitates has been analysed in detail, and 30 radiocarbon dates, geochemical, sedimentological, diatom and pollen analyses indicate that the unit dated from approximately 8.4 ka BP to <6 ka BP, and was deposited in an environment that passed through one arid-to-humid-to-arid cycle. The arid episodes, from prior to 8.4 ka BP, and subsequent to 7 ka BP, are characterized by high CaCO3 deposition, abundant diatom indicators of relatively high salinity and well developed periphytic communities, and pollen spectra dominated by desert-grassland indicators. A humid period centered on 8 ka BP is indicated by low CaCO3 deposition, high organic rich mud and Al and Si oxide deposition, diatoms indicating a fresh, deep (20 m) lake, and a pollen assemblage with maximum values for Sahelo-Sudanian tree taxa suggesting a thorn tree and shrub savanna vegetational mosaic. This reconstruction, concordant with higher groundwater table and precipitation between 9.3 and 7 ka BP, agrees with palaeoecological inferences from other sites in North Africa.