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Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

2018

Activity

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Impact Of Climate Change And Human Activity On Soil Landscapes Over The Past 12,300 Years, Leo Rothacker, Anthony Dosseto, Alexander Francke, Allan Chivas, Nathalie Vigier, Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Davide Menozzi Jan 2018

Impact Of Climate Change And Human Activity On Soil Landscapes Over The Past 12,300 Years, Leo Rothacker, Anthony Dosseto, Alexander Francke, Allan Chivas, Nathalie Vigier, Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Davide Menozzi

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Soils are key to ecosystems and human societies, and their critical importance requires a better understanding of how they evolve through time. However, identifying the role of natural climate change versus human activity (e.g. agriculture) on soil evolution is difficult. Here we show that for most of the past 12,300 years soil erosion and development were impacted differently by natural climate variability, as recorded by sediments deposited in Lake Dojran (Macedonia/Greece): short-lived ( < 1,000 years) climatic shifts had no effect on soil development but impacted soil erosion. This decoupling disappeared between 3,500 and 3,100 years ago, when the sedimentary record suggests an unprecedented erosion event associated with the development of agriculture in the region. Our results show unambiguously how differently soils evolved under natural climate variability (between 12,300 and 3,500 years ago) and later in response to intensifying human impact. The transition from natural to anthropogenic landscape started just before, or at, the onset of the Greek 'Dark Ages' (~3,200 cal yr BP). This could represent the earliest recorded sign of a negative feedback between civilization and environmental impact, where the development of agriculture impacted soil resources, which in turn resulted in a slowdown of civilization expansion.


Earliest Known Hominin Activity In The Philippines By 709 Thousand Years Ago, Thomas Ingicco, Gerrit D. Van Den Bergh, C Jago-On, J-J Bahain, M G. Chacón, Noel Amano, H Forestier, C King, K Manalo, Sebastien Nomade, A Pereira, M C. Reyes, A M. Semah, Q Shao, P Voinchet, C Falgueres, P C.H Albers, M Lising, George A. Lyras, Dida Yurnaldi, P Rochette, Angel Bautista, John De Vos Jan 2018

Earliest Known Hominin Activity In The Philippines By 709 Thousand Years Ago, Thomas Ingicco, Gerrit D. Van Den Bergh, C Jago-On, J-J Bahain, M G. Chacón, Noel Amano, H Forestier, C King, K Manalo, Sebastien Nomade, A Pereira, M C. Reyes, A M. Semah, Q Shao, P Voinchet, C Falgueres, P C.H Albers, M Lising, George A. Lyras, Dida Yurnaldi, P Rochette, Angel Bautista, John De Vos

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Over 60 years ago, stone tools and remains of megafauna were discovered on the Southeast Asian islands of Flores, Sulawesi and Luzon, and a Middle Pleistocene colonization by Homo erectus was initially proposed to have occurred on these islands. However, until the discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2003, claims of the presence of archaic hominins on Wallacean islands were hypothetical owing to the absence of in situ fossils and/or stone artefacts that were excavated from well-documented stratigraphic contexts, or because secure numerical dating methods of these sites were lacking. As a consequence, these claims were generally treated with scepticism. Here …