Dating the Anthropocene: Towards an empirical global history of human transformation of the terrestrial biosphere
Dating the Anthropocene: Towards an empirical global history of human transformation of the terrestrial biosphere
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DOI：
10.12952/journal.elementa.000018
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发表时间：
2013-12-04
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Lutters, Wayne G.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ellis, Erle C.;Fuller, Dorian Q.;Lutters, Wayne G.
人类对土地的使用是定义人类世的全球环境变化的主要原因。考古学和古生态学证据证实，人类人口及其对土地的使用在更新世晚期改变了世界各地的生态系统，历史模型表明这种转变可能在3000多年前达到了全球性的重要水平。然而，这些数据本身仍然不足以决定性地确定土地利用作为改变生物圈的全球力量出现的时间，合理的日期从更新世晚期到公元1800年不等。人类对陆地生物圈的改造的结论性经验定年将需要前所未有的投资水平，以持续的跨学科合作和地理空间网络基础设施的发展，以整理和整合考古学家，古生态学家，古环境科学家，环境历史学家，地球科学家，地理学家和其他人类和环境科学家从更新世到现在的实地观察。现有的实地观测在空间和时间覆盖面方面可能还不够，但通过在一个空间上明确的统计上健全的全球框架内评估这些观测，可以确定主要的观测差距，促进在代表性不足的区域和时间段收集数据。就像人类世本身一样，建立对人类在塑造生物圈中的作用的科学理解需要持续的努力，并利用这个星球上有史以来最强大的社会系统和技术。
Human use of land is a major cause of the global environmental changes that define the Anthropocene. Archaeological and paleoecological evidence confirm that human populations and their use of land transformed ecosystems at sites around the world by the late Pleistocene and historical models indicate this transformation may have reached globally significant levels more than 3000 years ago. Yet these data in themselves remain insufficient to conclusively date the emergence of land use as a global force transforming the biosphere, with plausible dates ranging from the late Pleistocene to AD 1800. Conclusive empirical dating of human transformation of the terrestrial biosphere will require unprecedented levels of investment in sustained interdisciplinary collaboration and the development of a geospatial cyberinfrastructure to - collate and integrate the field observations of archaeologists, paleoecologists, paleoenvironmental scientists, environmental historians, geoscientists, geographers and other human and environmental scientists globally from the Pleistocene to the present. Existing field observations may yet prove insufficient in terms of their spatial and temporal coverage, but by assessing these observations within a spatially explicit statistically robust global framework, major observational gaps can be identified, stimulating data gathering in underrepresented regions and time periods. Like the Anthropocene itself, building scientific understanding of the human role in shaping the biosphere requires both sustained effort and leveraging the most powerful social systems and technologies ever developed on this planet.