Paper is public
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.abj5567
Little is known about the antiquity, nature, and scale of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer
impact on their ecosystems, despite the importance for studies of
conservation and
human evolution. Such impact is likely to be limited, mainly because of
low population
densities, and challenging to detect and interpret in terms of
cause-effect dynamics.
We present high-resolution paleoenvironmental and archaeological data from
the Last Interglacial locality of Neumark-Nord (Germany). Among the
factors that shaped
vegetation structure and succession in this lake landscape, we identify a distinct
ecological footprint of hominin activities, including fire use. We compare these data
with evidence from archaeological and baseline sites from the same region. At Neumark-Nord, notably open vegetation coincides with a virtually
continuous c.
2000-year-long hominin presence, and the comparative data strongly suggest
that
hominins were a contributing factor. With an age of c. 125,000 years, Neumark-Nord
provides an early example of a hominin role in vegetation transformation.
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