Abstract
The deep-time dynamics of coupled socio-ecological systems at different spatial scales is viewed as a key framework to understand trends and mechanisms that have led to the Anthropocene. By integrating archeological and paleoenvironmental records, we test the hypothesis that Chilean societies progressively escalated their capacity to shape national biophysical systems as socio-cultural complexity and pressures on natural resources increased over the last three millennia. We demonstrate that Pre-Columbian societies intentionally transformed Chile’s northern and central regions by continuously adjusting socio-cultural practices and/or incorporating technologies that guaranteed resource access and social wealth. The fact that past human activities led to cumulative impacts on diverse biophysical processes, not only contradicts the notion of pristine pre-Industrial Revolution landscapes, but suggests that the Anthropocene derives from long-term processes that have operated uninterruptedly since Pre-Columbian times. Moreover, our synthesis suggests that most of present-day symptoms that describe the Anthropocene are rooted in pre-Columbian processes that scaled up in intensity over the last 3000 years, accelerating after the Spanish colonization and, more intensely, in recent decades. The most striking trend is the observed coevolution between the intensity of metallurgy and heavy-metal anthropogenic emissions. This entails that the Anthropocene cannot be viewed as a universal imprint of human actions that has arisen as an exclusive consequence of modern industrial societies. In the Chilean case, this phenomenon is intrinsically tied to historically and geographically diverse configurations in society-environment feedback relationships. Taken collectively with other case studies, the patterns revealed here could contribute to the discussion about how the Anthropocene is defined globally, in terms of chronology, stratigraphic markers and attributes. Furthermore, this deep-time narrative can potentially become a science-based instrument to shape better-informed discourses about the socio-environmental history in Chile. More importantly, however, this research provides crucial “baselines” to delineate safe operating spaces for future socio-ecological systems.
Highlights
The term Anthropocene is broadly used to describe the chapter of the Earth’s history in which, atmospheric, oceanographic, biogeochemical, hydrological and ecological patterns have been driven by human activities on par with, or even greater than, natural agents (Steffen et al., 2007; Zalasiewicz et al, 2011)
Starting from the premise that the Anthropocene represents a social-cultural-environmental process that “was not made in a day, nor was it created uniformly” (Ellis et al, 2016; p. 192), here we review the evolution in the deep time of human-environment interactions to understand patterns, trends and mechanisms that have led to the manifestations of the human dominated epoch in Chile
Evidences distilled here show the cumulative impact of past human activities on the evolution of national ecosystems, and support the emerging notion that the Anthropocene derives from long-term processes that have operated continuously since prehistoric times (Boivin et al, 2016; Braje and Erlandson, 2013a; Catlin, 2016; Kennett and Beach, 2013; Piperno et al, 2015; Rick et al, 2013; Rosen et al, 2015; Verstraeten, 2014)
Summary
The term Anthropocene is broadly used to describe the chapter of the Earth’s history in which, atmospheric, oceanographic, biogeochemical, hydrological and ecological patterns have been driven by human activities on par with, or even greater than, natural agents (Steffen et al., 2007; Zalasiewicz et al, 2011). The Anthropocene results from the long-term interplay between social upscaling (increasing trend in socio-cultural complexity), cooperative ecosystem engineering (environmental and cultural transformations brought by cooperative social interactions), and energy substitution (changes in energy sources) (Ellis, 2015; Ellis et al, 2018) Such reasoning has led to proposing the Anthropocene onset to at least 8000 years ago, when cooperative-production economies (i.e. based on agriculture and livestock rearing) emerged, amplifying the human capacity for engineering environments, and started to release greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4) into the atmosphere due to farming (Ellis et al, 2018; Gowdy and Krall, 2013; Ruddiman et al, 2015; Smith and Zeder, 2013). These activities coupled to fast urban expansion, industrial development and
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