Abstract
The reconstruction of human-driven, Earth-shaping dynamics is important for understanding past human/environment interactions and for helping human societies that currently face global changes. However, it is often challenging to distinguish the effects of the climate from human activities on environmental changes. Here we evaluate an approach based on DNA metabarcoding used on lake sediments to provide the first high-resolution reconstruction of plant cover and livestock farming history since the Neolithic Period. By comparing these data with a previous reconstruction of erosive event frequency, we show that the most intense erosion period was caused by deforestation and overgrazing by sheep and cowherds during the Late Iron Age and Roman Period. Tracking plants and domestic mammals using lake sediment DNA (lake sedDNA) is a new, promising method for tracing past human practices, and it provides a new outlook of the effects of anthropogenic factors on landscape-scale changes.
Highlights
The reconstruction of human-driven, Earth-shaping dynamics is important for understanding past human/environment interactions and for helping human societies that currently face global changes
Our reconstruction of the livestock farming history shows periods of grazing activity with sheep and/or cowherds that mainly occurred at the end of the Iron Age, the Roman Period, the Medieval times and the Modern Period
We focused on Pinus sp. and Alnus sp. (Supplementary Tables 1,2; Fig. 2) to document deforestation dynamics in relation to pasturing practices
Summary
The reconstruction of human-driven, Earth-shaping dynamics is important for understanding past human/environment interactions and for helping human societies that currently face global changes. By comparing these data with a previous reconstruction of erosive event frequency, we show that the most intense erosion period was caused by deforestation and overgrazing by sheep and cowherds during the Late Iron Age and Roman Period. The application of DNA metabarcoding to lake sediments has proven its potential to trace past vegetation cover[22] This tool has never been used with the objective of detecting the presence of mammals and plants in ancient ecosystems and to reconstruct a detailed picture of human land use since the Neolithic Period. These results suggest that the most intense grazing pressure on landscape and the erosion in this subalpine area occurred during the Roman occupation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call