2019
DOI: 10.1126/science.aax1192
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Abstract: 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 highl… Show more

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Cited by 381 publications
(226 citation statements)
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“…Exploiting this link between ancient and modern requires the assumption that the environmental conditions that drive the food webs that humans rely upon, wherever they are, have remained stable and that the past can be mapped onto the present. While there have been changes in climate and environment during the Holocene these have been relatively muted, with most larger-scale landscape change resulting from human intervention in recent times, and not changes in underlying environmental drivers 22 .…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Exploiting this link between ancient and modern requires the assumption that the environmental conditions that drive the food webs that humans rely upon, wherever they are, have remained stable and that the past can be mapped onto the present. While there have been changes in climate and environment during the Holocene these have been relatively muted, with most larger-scale landscape change resulting from human intervention in recent times, and not changes in underlying environmental drivers 22 .…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…They have also been commercially exploited as resources for food, nacre or pearls (Fortunato, 2015), and have been displaced over long distances intentionally for aquaculture purposes, or unintentionally (e.g., through ship transportation) (Carlton, 1999). Although successful DNA recovery may prove challenging, investigating mollusk shell DNA preservation beyond the 7,000 year BP limit holds the potential to provide valuable information about the impact of earlier climatic shifts in the Quaternary, such as the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial/interstadial oscillations, the transition into the Holocene, and subsequent increased human environmental impacts (Stephens et al, 2019). Other important areas of research include the applicability of ancient shell genomics to freshwater and terrestrial mollusks (Lydeard et al, 2004) and determining if ancient mollusk shell DNA enclose useful phylogenetic and population structure information.…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It is well established that over millennia Native Americans modified local vegetation in Eastern North America while managing natural resources, intensifying agricultural production, and within the expanding footprint of settlements (e.g., Abrams & Nowacki, ; Delcourt & Delcourt, ; Stephens et al, ). In the Mississippi Valley and adjacent portions of Eastern North America, archaeologists and paleoecologists have relied primarily on pollen data to argue for widespread anthropogenic impacts to local vegetation communities by indigenous peoples (e.g., Delcourt, Delcourt, & Saucier, ; Munoz, Schroeder, Fike, & Williams, ; Scharf, ).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%