This year my contribution to the Science in Archaeology course (VU Amsterdam) was done online due to the COVID-19 restrictions. The course comprised live online lectures, pre-recorded video clips and case study discussions. The focus was how to detect past human impacts on the landscape and we explored many proxies including: charcoal, diatoms, egg shells, non-pollen palynomorphs, phytoliths, and pollen. In the final session of the humans impacts section of the course each student presented a case study paper that they had chosen. Here is what they chose:
- Kinder, M., Tylmann, W., Bubak, I. et al. Holocene history of human impacts inferred from annually laminated sediments in Lake Szurpiły, northeast Poland. J Paleolimnol 61, 419–435 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-019-00068-2
- Perren BB, Massa C, Bichet V, et al. A paleoecological perspective on 1450 years of human impacts from a lake in southern Greenland. The Holocene. 2012;22(9):1025-1034. doi:10.1177/0959683612437865
- Miller, G. H., Magee, J. W., Johnson, B. J., Fogel, M. L., Spooner, N. A., McCulloch, M. T., & Ayliffe, L. K. (1999). Pleistocene extinction of Genyornis newtoni: human impact on Australian megafauna. Science, 283(5399), 205-208. DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5399.205
- Katerina Kouli, Tracing human impact on a mountainous plant landscape in Rhodopi Mt (N. Greece) during the last 1100 years, Revue de Micropaléontologie, Volume 68, 2020, 100442, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revmic.2020.100442.
- Spassimir Tonkov, Elena Marinova, Mariana Filipova-Marinova, Elissaveta Bozilova. Holocene palaeoecology and humaneenvironmental interactions at the coastal Black Sea Lake Durankulak, northeastern Bulgaria. Quaternary International. 328-329 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2013.12.004
- Djamali, M., de Beaulieu, J.-L., Andrieu-Ponel, V., Berberian, M., Miller, N. F., Gandouin, E., Lahijani, H., Shah-Hosseini, M., Ponel, P., Salimian, M., & Guiter, F. (2009). A late Holocene pollen record from Lake Almalou in NW Iran: evidence for changing land-use in relation to some historical events during the last 3700 years. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(7), 1364–1375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.01.022
- Brusgaard, N., Fokkens, H., & Kootker, L. M. (2019). An isotopic perspective on the socio-economic significance of livestock in Bronze Age West-Frisia, the Netherlands (2000–800 BCE). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 27(July), 101944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.101944
- Astudillo, F. J. (2018). Soil phytoliths as indicators of initial human impact on San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 490, 522–532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2017.11.038
- Haberle, S. G. (2003). Late quaternary vegetation dynamics and human impact on alexander selkirk island, chile. Journal of Biogeography, 30(2), 239–255. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2003.00780.x
Ecology of the past 