At the vanishing point : environment and prehistoric land use in the Black Rock Desert

At the Vanishing Point: Environment and Prehistoric Land Use in the Black Rock Desert

This paper discusses how the use of AI (artificial intelligence) detected later prehistoric field systems provides a more reliable base for reconstructing palaeodemographic trends, using the Netherlands as a case study. Despite its long tradition of settlement excavations, models that could be used to reconstruct (changes in) prehistoric land use have been few and often relied on (insufficiently mapped) nodal data points such as settlements and barrows. We argue that prehistoric field systems of field plots beset on all sides by earthen banks—known as Celtic fields—are a more suitable (i.e. less nodal) proxy for reconstructing later prehistoric land use.For four 32.25 km2 case study areas in different geogenetic regions of the Netherlands, prehistoric land use surface areas are modelled based on conventional methods and the results are compared to the results we obtained by using AI‐assisted detection of prehistoric field systems. The nationally available LiDAR data were used for automated detection. Geotiff DTM images were fed into an object detection algorithm (based on the YOLOv4 framework and trained with known Dutch sites), and resultant geospatial vectors were imported into GIS.Our analysis shows that AI‐assisted detection of prehistoric embanked field systems on average leads to a factor 1.84 increase in known surface areas of Celtic fields. Modelling the numbers of occupants from this spatial coverage, yields population sizes of 37–135 persons for the case study regions (i.e. 1.15 to 4.19 p/km2). This range aligns well with previous estimates and offers a more robust and representative proxy for palaeodemographic reconstructions. Variations in land use coverage between the regions could be explained by differences in present‐day land use and research intensity. Particularly the regionally different extent of forestlands and heathlands (ideal for the (a) preservation and (b) automated LiDAR detection of embanked field systems) explains minor variations between the four case study regions.

Reconstructing prehistoric land use change from archeological data: Validation and application of a new model in Yiluo valley, northern China

Pedestrian survey in northern Warner Valley, Oregon, has provided data capable of contributing to reconstructions of prehistoric land use. Such information is complementary to data generated by recent work at the stratified LSP-1 rockshelter situated in the Northern Warner Valley Study Area (NWVSA). Here, we present results of our survey and focus on when the area was visited, how it was used, and from where visitors to the area originated and/or obtained toolstone. Our results indicate that the NWVSA saw heavy use by Paleoindians before being largely abandoned during the Middle Holocene. During the Late Holocene, groups likely operating from residential bases further south in the better-watered parts of Warner Valley returned to the NWVSA. Compared to other nearby areas, the NWVSA was utilized less intensively during much of the Holocene.

During the Holocene, the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River valley in China were pivotal areas for agricultural development. Quantitatively reconstructing the spatiotemporal changes in prehistoric human land use is essential for understanding, from a long-term perspective, the interactions among evolutions of climate, agriculture, and human activities. Based on 327 archaeological sites and the PLUM (prehistoric land use model), we quantitatively reconstructed human land use changes from 6 to 3 ka BP (thousands of years before the present) in the Tao River valley, the second-largest tributary in the upper reach of the Yellow River valley. The results indicated that regional land use areas increased from 571 km2 to 1468 km2, with spatial expansion from the lower reach to the upper–middle reach of the Tao River valley. A comparison of the five areas distributed across the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River valley revealed two different trends of increasing land use from 8 to 3 ka BP within these areas. The first group (the Wei River and Yiluo River valleys) exhibited rapid and substantial growth before 5 ka BP, while the second group (the Huangshui River and Tao River valleys, and the Yunlin district) showed a much slower and less significant increase before 5 ka BP, but a more obvious increase thereafter. The asynchronous increases in these areas indicate an expansion of land use from the southeastern part of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River Valley to across the entire region between 8 and 3 ka BP, which was primarily driven by agricultural development and cultural communication.

Agricultural land use has been established as the dominant prehistoric human activity in early cultural centers for thousands of years. However, because of lack of data, there is still considerable debate about the amount and spatial distribution of prehistoric land use across the world. Quantitative reconstruction of it on the basis of human activity records, for example, archaeological data, is the key to resolving the issue. Here, we focus on one of the most representative regions for prehistoric human activity in northern China, the Wei River valley. Based on archaeological and environmental data, a recently developed quantitative prehistoric land use model (PLUM) is applied to reconstruct spatial and temporal changes of land use between 8 and 4 ka BP. The results reveal that in line with increases in the total number of archaeological sites (from 24 to 3222) and population (from 4000 to 1,550,000), the land area of the valley used by humans increased from 0.2% to 12% during the study interval, expanding from the gentle slopes along the lower reaches of the river to the middle and upper reaches. Meanwhile, the average population for an individual site increased from 160 to 481, but the average land use area per site decreased from 12.84 to 4.68 km 2 . Since 6 ka BP, the significant land use increase occurred synchronously in the Wei River valley and other key regions of agricultural origin across the world, which highlights the important role of agriculture activity in transforming the nature of global land cover during the prehistoric period.

We test the hypothesis that prehistoric Native American land use influenced the Euro-American settlement process in a South Carolina Piedmont landscape. Long term ecological studies demonstrate that land use legacies influence processes and trajectories in complex, coupled social and ecological systems. Native American land use likely altered the ecological and evolutionary feedback and trajectories of many North American landscapes. Yet, considerable debate revolves around the scale and extent of land use legacies of prehistoric Native Americans. At the core of this debate is the question of whether or not European colonists settled a mostly “wild” landscape or an already “humanized” landscape. We use statistical event analysis to model the effects of prehistoric Native American settlement on the rate of Colonial land grants (1749–1775). Our results reveal how abandoned Native American settlements were among the first areas claimed and homesteaded by Euro-Americans. We suggest that prehistoric land use legacies served as key focal nodes in the Colonial era settlement process. As a consequence, localized prehistoric land use legacies likely helped structure the long term, landscape- to regional-level ecological inheritances that resulted from Euro-American settlement.

The contribution of early human activity to the increase in atmospheric CH4 content during the middle to late-Holocene is still debated. The quantitative reconstruction of past changes in land use by early rice agriculture is a key to resolving the issue, because large uncertainties still exist in current prehistoric land use estimates, owing to a lack of direct records. In this study, we used the combination of archaeological data (the area and distribution of archaeological sites) and an improved prehistoric land use model (PLUM) to determine the spatiotemporal changes in land use by rice agriculture throughout the Yangtze River Valley, China, which was the origin and centre of the development of rice cultivation. The results indicate that the area devoted to rice agriculture increased during 10–2 ka BP, and that a significant increase occurred at ~5 ka BP accompanied by a spatial expansion from the northern part of the valley to the entire valley. However, the rice land use area decreased slightly during 4–3 ka BP but then increased after 3 ka BP. We estimate that the CH4 emissions from the rice cultivated area in the Yangtze River Valley increased from ~0.001 (±0.001) to ~1.3 (±0.6) Tg/year during 10–2 ka BP, and the resulting atmospheric CH4 concentrations increased from ~0.004 (±0.002) to ~4.1 (±2.0) ppb, which accounted for 3 (±2)–9 (±5) % of the ‘anomalous atmospheric CH4 increase’ during 5–2 ka BP.

Several archaeologists in southern New England have observed that during the Archaic period of gathering and hunting in the Northeast, between approximately 10,000 and 3,000 years ago, sites proliferated in the interior and were located in a variety of environmental zones (Dincauze 1974; Thorbahn et al. 1980). These studies further suggest, on the basis of subregional site distributions, that prehistoric people abandoned the interior at the beginning of the Woodland period, 3,000 years ago, and shifted the focus of their subsistence to the coastal zone. This paper evaluates the validity of these propositions and attempts to answer the question: why did prehistoric land use shift in focus from a diversity of habitats throughout southern New England to the major river valleys and coastal areas, once horticulture became an important element in the subsistence mix? Archaeological site distributions from southern New England for the past 12,000 years are used to evaluate geographic changes in land use, while documentary evidence written by European observers of Native Americans is used to compare differences in territoriality and land use between gatherer-hunters and foraging horticulturalists.

The mountainous inland of northern Calabria (Southern Italy) is known for its sparse prehistoric human occupation. Nevertheless, a thorough multidisciplinary approach of field walking, geophysical survey and invasive research led to the discovery of a major archaeological archive. This archive concerns a rich multi-phased dump, spanning about 3000 years (Late Neolithic to Late Imperial Roman Age) and holding two Somma-Vesuvius tephra. Of these, the younger is a distinct layer of juvenile tephra from the Pompeii eruption, while the older concerns reworked tephra from the Bronze Age AP2 eruption (ca. 1700 cal. yr BP). The large dump contains abundant ceramics, faunal remains and charcoal, and most probably originated through long-continued deposition of waste in a former gully like system of depressions. This resulted in an inversed, mound-like relief, whose anthropogenic origin had not been recognized in earlier research. The tephras were found to be important markers that support the reconstruction of the occupational history of the site. The sequence of occupational phases is very similar to that observed in a recent palaeoecological study from nearby situated former lakes (Lago Forano/Fontana Manca). This suggests that this sequence reflects the more regional occupational history of Calabria, which goes back to ca. 3000 BC. Attention is paid to the potential link between this history and Holocene climatic phases, for which no indication was found. The history deviates strongly from histories deduced from the few, but major palaeorecords elsewhere in the inlands of Southern Italy (Lago Grande di Monticchio and Lago Trifoglietti). We conclude that major regional variation occurred in prehistoric land use and its impacts on the vegetation cover of Southern Italy, and studies of additional palaeoarchives are needed to unravel this complex history. Finally, shortcomings of archaeological predictive models are discussed and the advantages of truly integrated multidisciplinary research.

The composition of a forest of relicts of cultivation in four uninhabited valleys in Kohala, Hawaii, is documented. A general hypothesis is made that arboreal distribution patterns are a function of both historical land use and ecological interaction since abandonment. The physical and historical geography of the valleys was investigated. Climate varies little, but distinct geomorphic zones offer differing biological environments. Prehistoric land use consisted of taro patches with intercropped banks. Talus slope gardens supported the Polynesian tree crops 'ohi'a 'ai (Eugenia malaccensis), kukui (Aleurites moluccana), 'ulu, (Artocarpus incisus), ti (Cordyline terminalis), and noni (Morinda citrifolia), important in today's flora. Gathering took place on slopes. Western contact with Hawaii, initiated in 1778, brought new crops. Papaya (Carica papaya), mango (Mangifera indica), guava (Psidium guajava), and coffee (Coffea arabica) were important adoptions in Kohala. As land use changed, the region also suffered depopulation, losing half its numbers between 1830 and 1870. Chinese rice-growing forestalled complete abandonment, which finally occurred after 1920. Current vegetation was assessed by creating 15 sampling units containing 554 quadrats. Inside quadrats, the size-class and species of each tree was recorded, yielding measures of frequency, density, cover, importance, and richness. Four environmental conditions were also assessed. The resulting variables were mapped and inter-correlated. Guava, kukui, noni, 'ohi'a 'ai, ti, hala (Pandanus odoratissimus), and coffee proved the most numerous species. Rarer species were often localized, illuminating historical land use. The data were examined and reformatted into matrices suitable for cross-classification analysis. Consistent relationships included the association of guava with low-slope and 'ohi'a 'ai with high-slope. Richness showed association with high-slope and cliff proximity. The mark of Hawaiian cultivators is apparent. Polynesian species accounted for 48.2% of the importance value. Size-class histograms revealed a stable structure for most species. Certain Western exotics had spotty distributions or size-class structures that indicate impending extinction. Native species are rare except for hala. There are indications that they were probably scarce during prehistory as well. This study exemplifies historical biogeography. It synthesizes methods of geography, ecology, and archaeology for the purpose of better interpreting cultural vegetation.

The Goldilocks Zone for maize agriculture and the settlement and abandonment of the West Tavaputs Plateau

Coastal erosion of sand dune systems along Druridge Bay, northeast England, has progressively exposed parts of the subdune mid‐Holocene landscape, including paleocatenas, indicating former soil hydrosequences with localized wetland habitats, and archaeological evidence of human activities and land use from the Late Mesolithic to the Romano‐British period. Archaeological investigations and pedostratigraphic studies of paleosols provide a unique spatial–chronological framework to interpret soil and land use change over several millennia in the context of a changing coastal environment. Evidence includes dating of archaeological remains, the stratigraphy, morphology and micromorphology of buried soils and sediments, and the palynology and radiocarbon dating of subdune peats. Early Bronze Age burial sites were preferentially located on well‐drained hillocks also used for grazing. Adjacent wetland depressions provided areas of marshy grassland and swamp over deep fen peat soils that started to develop c. 5435 cal. yr B.P. in response to a rising groundwater table stimulated partly by slow sea‐level rise. The backslopes of the paleocatena were occupied by imperfectly to poorly drained soils that supported open oak‐hazel woodland with evidence for progressive clearance and use for agriculture. Windblown sand started to accumulate on the study site sometime between 3930 and 3670 cal. yr B.P., well before the Little Ice Age date for dune formation suggested by previous researchers.

Loess and early land use: Geoarchaeological investigation at the early Neolithic site of Guobei, Southern Chinese Loess Plateau

Holocene flooding and river development in a Mediterranean steepland catchment: The Anapodaris Gorge, south central Crete, Greece