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Archeology, Deep History, and the Human Transformation of Island Ecosystems

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Archeology, Deep History, and the Human Transformation of Island Ecosystems Anthropocene 4 (2013) 33–45 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Anthropocene jo urnal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ancene Archeology, deep history, and the human transformation of island ecosystems a, b,c d,e e Torben C. Rick *, Patrick V. Kirch , Jon M. Erlandson , Scott M. Fitzpatrick a Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013-7012, United States b Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States c Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States d Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1224, United States e Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1218, United States A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Island ecosystems and peoples face uncertain futures in the wake of predicted climate change, sea level Received 2 May 2013 rise, and habitat alteration in the decades and centuries to come. Archeological and paleoecological Received in revised form 30 July 2013 records provide important context for understanding modern environmental and sociopolitical Accepted 6 August 2013 developments on islands. We review and analyze human interactions with island ecosystems in Available online 19 August 2013 Polynesia, the Caribbean, and California during the last several millennia. Our analysis demonstrates that human impacts on island ecosystems and cases of highly managed anthropogenic landscapes extend Keywords: deep in the past, often beginning at initial settlement. There are important issues of scale and island Historical ecology physical characteristics, however, that make human ecodynamics on islands variable through space and Paleoecology time. These data demonstrate that current environmental problems have their roots in deeper time and Global change Polynesia suggest that the Anthropocene likely began by the onset of the Holocene, if not earlier. Caribbean Published by Elsevier Ltd. California 1. Introduction questioning how this epoch will be characterized in ensuing centuries and millennia (Autin and Holbrook, 2012; Gale and We live in a time of rapid global environmental change as Hoare, 2012). earth’s ecosystems and organisms adjust to decades, centuries, or Archeologists are also debating the nature of the Anthropocene more of anthropogenic perturbations (Jackson, 2010; La Sorte and and the relationship of modern environmental problems to deeper Jetz, 2010; Zalasiewicz et al., 2010) and climate change threatens time human–environmental impacts. Smith and Zeder (2013) argue to create even greater instability (U.S. Global Change Research that the Anthropocene is an extension of the Holocene, which began Program, 2009). The magnitude of these environmental and about 10,000 years ago when domestication and the origins of climatic changes has prompted some researchers to propose that agriculture ushered in millennia of human environmental impacts we now live in a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. The onset that have continued to the present day. With substantial evidence of the Anthropocene has been linked to the Industrial Revolution, that hunter-gatherer, pastoral, and agricultural peoples have with its dramatic increases in CO2 production (Crutzen and profoundly altered terrestrial and marine ecosystems for millennia Stoermer, 2000; Crutzen, 2002; Zalasiewicz et al., 2010), and a host (Redman, 1999; Kirch, 2005; Erlandson and Rick, 2010), archeology of other events ranging from release of human made radionuclides provides unique tools to help contextualize human–environmental to human induced sedimentation (Zalasiewicz et al., 2011a). The interactions in the past and present. This deep historical record also Anthropocene concept has focused scholarly and popular dis- supplies insights that can assist modern conservation biology, course on human domination of Earth’s ecosystems, becoming a restoration, and management (Lotze et al., 2011; Lyman, 2012; Rick catchall phrase used to define human environmental impacts and and Lockwood, 2013; Wolverton and Lyman, 2012; Lyman, 2006; the modern ecological crisis. The definition and implications of the Wolverton et al., 2011). Anthropocene, however, are the subject of much debate. Some In this paper, we evaluate the Anthropocene concept by geologists find it improbable that the Anthropocene will leave any investigating archeological and historical data from islands around kind of geologic signature in the rock record, for instance, the world. Globally, islands and archipelagos are often important reservoirs of biological and ecological diversity. Archeologically, islands offer a means to evaluate human environmental interac- tions on a circumscribed and smaller scale than continents. As * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 202 633 1890; fax: +1 202 357 2208. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.C. Rick). Kirch (1997, 2004) noted, islands often serve as microcosms of the 2213-3054/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2013.08.002 34 T.C. Rick et al. / Anthropocene 4 (2013) 33–45 larger processes operating on continents. Once viewed as scientific colonized by Homo erectus 800,000 or more years ago (Morwood laboratories and more recently as model systems (see Evans, 1973; et al., 1998, 2004). Evidence for maritime voyaging and island Kirch, 2007; Fitzpatrick and Anderson, 2008; Vitousek, 2002), colonization is very limited, however, until after anatomically islands around the world have been inhabited by humans for modern humans spread out of Africa about 70,000–60,000 years millennia and have long been affected by human activities, ago (Erlandson, 2010a,b). Australia and New Guinea were including over-exploitation, burning and landscape clearance, the colonized roughly 45,000–50,000 years ago (O’Connell et al., introduction of exotic flora and/or fauna, and increased produc- 2010; O’Connor, 2010) in migrations requiring multiple sea tivity (Kirch, 2005; Erlandson and Fitzpatrick, 2006; Fitzpatrick voyages up to 80–90 km long. Several island groups in Southeast and Keegan, 2007; McGovern et al., 2007). As some scholars have Asia were also settled between about 45,000 and 30,000 years ago, noted, the generally more limited terrestrial biodiversity and and some of these early maritime peoples appear to have had circumscription on islands have made human impacts more significant marine fishing capabilities (O’Connor, 2010; O’Connor obvious than those on continents (Grayson, 2001; Steadman and et al., 2011). Additional long sea voyages were required for humans Martin, 2003; Wroe et al., 2006). There are also examples of people to colonize the Bismarck Archipelago in western Melanesia actively managing or enhancing ecosystems on islands and between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (Erlandson, 2010a). Further continents, and researchers are now revisiting classic cases of north, several of the Ryuku Islands between Taiwan and Japan human environmental degradation, including Rapa Nui (Easter were also settled by Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers between Island; Hunt and Lipo, 2009) and the Maya collapse at Copan about 38,000 and 18,000 years ago (Takamiya, 2006; Habu, 2010). (McNeil et al., 2010), demonstrating the complexities of environ- In Japan, the main island of Honshu also has several sites that mental change and the role of people in influencing such changes contain obsidian obtained from Kozu Island (Izu Islands) by 32,000 and responding to them. Much remains to be learned about the years ago (Habu, 2010). Overall, the evidence from Sunda and implications of island archeology and paleoecology for helping Sahul demonstrates significant maritime voyaging, ocean naviga- understand the potential environmental, social, and political tion, and island colonization by the Late Pleistocene. consequences of the Anthropocene. Somewhat later in time, colonization of California’s Channel After reviewing the chronology of human settlement of islands Islands at least 11,000 B.C. (all B.C./A.D./B.P. dates are calibrated around the world, we present case studies from three heavily calendar ages unless otherwise noted) required boats and was studied island groups. These include Polynesia occupied by achieved by some of the earliest people to live in the Americas maritime agriculturalists, the Caribbean occupied by agriculturalists (Erlandson et al., 2011a,b). Early coastal sites in California, and hunter-gatherers, and California’s Channel Islands occupied elsewhere on the Pacific Rim, and in Chile have helped support entirely by hunter-gatherers. We explore three interrelated ques- the coastal migration theory for the initial peopling of the Americas tions. What are the types of impacts that ancient peoples had on (Erlandson et al., 2007). Colonization of several Mediterranean island ecosystems and how do these vary spatially, temporally, and islands occurs about this same time, with hunter-gatherers or early cross-culturally? How do archeological and paleoecological data agriculturalists expanding to several islands and traveling to Melos contribute to an understanding of human domination of Earth’s to obtain obsidian during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early ecosystems, including extinction, invasive species ecology, habitat Holocene (Cherry, 1990; Patton, 1996; Broodbank, 2006). degradation, and climate change? Finally, how do these arche- During the Middle and Late Holocene,
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