Please consider submitting a paper abstract to our EAA session (Vilnius, Lithuania, 31st Aug - 4th Sept 2016) 'Human land use and subsistence history over the Holocene'
Please forward to any interested students and colleagues.
Human land use and subsistence history over the Holocene
Nicki J. Whitehouse1, Andrew Bauer2, LuAnn Wandsnider3
1 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK
2 Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA
3 Dept. Anthropology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA
A long-term focus, examining changes ~ 8000 cal BC to ~ cal AD 1500 (10,000 BP – 500 BP), will allow progression towards a global overview of how subsistence and land cover has changed as
a consequence of hunter-gatherer and agricultural activities across different regions of the world. We would like to concentrate especially (but not exclusively) on the following periods: the early Holocene ~8000 cal BC, the impacts and consequences of agricultural
production (~4000 cal BC) and intensification (~2000 cal BC). More recent periods, focusing on areas outside of Europe, are also welcomed, as the chronology of activities are substantially different to Europe. As we will take a global perspective, we expect
diverse regional land use and subsistence practices to be explored. Papers that cover all or parts of these periods and contributions that synthesise understanding of subsidence practices and implications for land usage are welcomed. This session will form
part of activities of the PAGES-funded Landcover6k project (http://www.pages-igbp.org/ini/wg/landcover6k/intro),
an international and interdisciplinary working group dedicated to reconstructing global Holocene land use and land cover. The initial goal of this effort is to critically evaluate and improve models of anthropogenic land cover change being employed by climate
scientists and ensure these are archaeologically robust and are well-informed by current understanding of human land use history.