Oceanic islands remained free of humans until relatively recent times. On contact, humans encountered pristine environments with unique ecosystems and species highly vulnerable to novel impacts. In the course of rendering an island habitable, the new settlers transformed it through fire, deforestation, hunting and introduction of pests and weeds. The result, as described for many oceanic islands globally, has been a catastrophe for biodiversity. Here we present the case of the Canary Islands, an Atlantic archipelago renowned for its exceptional biodiversity, and show that these islands have been no exception to the general rule. We review the archaeological, palaeoecological, palaeontological and ecological literature for the archipelago and discuss the ecological consequences e in particular habitat transformation and biodiversity loss e of human settlement. In contrast to previous views that prehistoric humans had only limited impacts on these islands, we show that vegetation change, increased fire, soil erosion, species introductions and extinctions follow the familiar oceanic pattern. Timing of human settlement of the Canary Islands has been controversial, with revised archaeological dates suggesting a relatively late arrival at the beginning of the Common Era, while palaeoecological and palaeontological evidence favours a presence several centuries earlier. While the matter is still not settled, we suggest that settlement sometime between 2400 and 2000 cal years BP is a possibility.
The indigenous populations of La Palma (Canary Islands), who arrived on the island from Northwest Africa ca. 2000 years B.P., were predominantly pastoralists. Yet, many aspects of their subsistence economy such as the procurement, management, and use of wild plant resources remain largely unknown. To explore this, we studied the 600–1100‐year‐old archaeological site of Belmaco Cave, which comprises a stratified sedimentary deposit representative of a fumier. Here, we present a high‐resolution, multiproxy geoarchaeological study combining soil micromorphology, lipid biomarker analysis, X‐ray diffraction, μ‐X‐ray diffraction, μ‐X‐ray fluorescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and μ‐Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, to characterize formation processes and explore plant sources. Recurrent goat/sheep habitation and maintenance activities are represented by interstratified layers of unburned dung, charcoal‐rich sediment, and dung ash. Lipid biomarker data show a herd diet mainly composed of herbaceous plants, which is key to understanding the mobility of indigenous shepherds. Our results also revealed an unusual suite of authigenic minerals including hazenite, aragonite, and sylvite, possibly formed through diagenetic processes involving interaction between ash, dung, urine, volcanogenic components, and bacterial activity, coupled with arid and alkaline conditions. Our study shows the potential of a multiproxy approach to a fumier deposit in a volcanogenic sedimentary context.
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