TY - JOUR
T1 - Mapping past human land use using archaeological data
T2 - A new classification for global land use synthesis and data harmonization
AU - Morrison, Kathleen D.
AU - Hammer, Emily
AU - Boles, Oliver
AU - Madella, Marco
AU - Whitehouse, Nicola
AU - Gaillard, Marie Jose
AU - Bates, Jennifer
AU - Linden, Marc Vander
AU - Merlo, Stefania
AU - Yao, Alice
AU - Popova, Laura
AU - Hill, Austin Chad
AU - Antolin, Ferran
AU - Bauer, Andrew
AU - Biagetti, Stefano
AU - Bishop, Rosie R.
AU - Buckland, Phillip
AU - Cruz, Pablo
AU - Dreslerová, Dagmar
AU - Dusseldorp, Gerrit
AU - Ellis, Erle
AU - Filipovic, Dragana
AU - Foster, Thomas
AU - Hannaford, Matthew J.
AU - Harrison, Sandy P.
AU - Hazarika, Manjil
AU - Herold, Hajnalka
AU - Hilpert, Johanna
AU - Kaplan, Jed O.
AU - Kay, Andrea
AU - Goldewijk, Kees Klein
AU - Kolár, Jan
AU - Kyazike, Elizabeth
AU - Laabs, Julian
AU - Lancelotti, Carla
AU - Lane, Paul
AU - Lawrence, Dan
AU - Lewis, Krista
AU - Lombardo, Umberto
AU - Lucarini, Giulio
AU - Arroyo-Kalin, Manuel
AU - Marchant, Rob
AU - Mayle, Francis
AU - McClatchie, Meriel
AU - McLeester, Madeleine
AU - Mooney, Scott
AU - Moskal-Del Hoyo, Magdalena
AU - Navarrete, Vanessa
AU - Ndiema, Emmanuel
AU - Neves, Eduardo Góes
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Morrison et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/4/14
Y1 - 2021/4/14
N2 - In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties in the current understanding of the past and current state of the earth system. In order to improve representation of the variety and scale of impacts that past land use had on the earth system, a global effort is underway to aggregate and synthesize archaeological and historical evidence of land use systems. Here we present a simple, hierarchical classification of land use systems designed to be used with archaeological and historical data at a global scale and a schema of codes that identify land use practices common to a range of systems, both implemented in a geospatial database. The classification scheme and database resulted from an extensive process of consultation with researchers worldwide. Our scheme is designed to deliver consistent, empirically robust data for the improvement of land use models, while simultaneously allowing for a comparative, detailed mapping of land use relevant to the needs of historical scholars. To illustrate the benefits of the classification scheme and methods for mapping historical land use, we apply it to Mesopotamia and Arabia at 6 kya (c. 4000 BCE). The scheme will be used to describe land use by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) LandCover6k working group, an international project comprised of archaeologists, historians, geographers, paleoecologists, and modelers. Beyond this, the scheme has a wide utility for creating a common language between research and policy communities, linking archaeologists with climate modelers, biodiversity conservation workers and initiatives.
AB - In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties in the current understanding of the past and current state of the earth system. In order to improve representation of the variety and scale of impacts that past land use had on the earth system, a global effort is underway to aggregate and synthesize archaeological and historical evidence of land use systems. Here we present a simple, hierarchical classification of land use systems designed to be used with archaeological and historical data at a global scale and a schema of codes that identify land use practices common to a range of systems, both implemented in a geospatial database. The classification scheme and database resulted from an extensive process of consultation with researchers worldwide. Our scheme is designed to deliver consistent, empirically robust data for the improvement of land use models, while simultaneously allowing for a comparative, detailed mapping of land use relevant to the needs of historical scholars. To illustrate the benefits of the classification scheme and methods for mapping historical land use, we apply it to Mesopotamia and Arabia at 6 kya (c. 4000 BCE). The scheme will be used to describe land use by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) LandCover6k working group, an international project comprised of archaeologists, historians, geographers, paleoecologists, and modelers. Beyond this, the scheme has a wide utility for creating a common language between research and policy communities, linking archaeologists with climate modelers, biodiversity conservation workers and initiatives.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104147535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0246662
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0246662
M3 - Article
C2 - 33852578
AN - SCOPUS:85104147535
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 4
M1 - e0246662
ER -
