Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 BP to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists by 3,000 years ago, significantly earlier than land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by over 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked at 2000 BP and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth's transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon.One Sentence Summary: A map of synthesized archaeological knowledge on land use reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists by 3,000 years ago.
This article assesses the role of the pre-modern past in the construction of political
identities relating to the UK’s membership in the European Union by examining how
materials and ideas from Iron Age to Early Medieval Britain and Europe were leveraged by
those who discussed the topic of Brexit in over 1.4 million messages published in
dedicated Facebook pages. Through a combination of data-intensive and qualitative
investigations of textual data, we identify the ‘heritages’ invoked in support of pro- or
anti-Brexit sentiments. We show how these heritages are centred around myths of origins,
resistance and collapse that incorporate tensions and binary divisions.
We highlight the strong influence of past expert practices in shaping such deeply
entrenched dualistic thinking and reflect over the longue durée agency of
heritage expertise. This is the first systematic study of public perceptions and
experience of the past in contemporary society undertaken through digital heritage
research fuelled by big data. As such, the article contributes novel methodological
approaches and substantially advances theory in cultural heritage studies. It is also the
first published work to analyse the role of heritage in the construction of political
identities in relation to Brexit via extensive social research.
Multispectral ASTER satelliteimageryhasrecentlybecomeavailableforscholarlyresearch.The overall bandwidth and spatialresolution of the system give it an advantage overolder Landsat satellites.In northern Mesopotamia, modern day north Iraq, hollow ways, sites and canals have all been located usingthe ASTER system.Thissystemhasproventobeusefulinbothverifyingresultsfoundin CORONA satellite data and locating potential archaeological features that cannot be easily distinguished on CORONAimagery.Spectralsignatures andvisualmanipulation can bothbeused to assist intheidentification of distinct feature types. Reflectance information obtained from imagery can also be checked with ASTER's spectral library. With proper analytical methods applied, significant benefits for landscape archaeology can be achieved
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