Comparative Legacies of Human Land Use in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

长期以来，热带雨林一直被认为是过去人类存在的“原始”屏障。然而，大量最近的考古研究，应用了一些最新的测量、建模和生物分子技术，显示了人类占领和管理这些生物多样性栖息地的悠久历史。热带文化遗产现在被认为对制定更有效的政策和保护世界各地的热带森林至关重要。然而，在许多关键地区，关于百年及以上规模的热带森林长期人类历史的比较信息仍然有限。该项目旨在了解长期的人类土地利用如何影响21世纪最受威胁的热带森林之一--巴西大西洋森林。它的重点是人类活动对其生态和相关地球系统造成的变化，它将捕捉三个焦点时期之间环境影响的时间和程度。这代表着生存和人口制度的重大转变：前哥伦布时代(公元1500年之前)、殖民地时期(公元1500年-1700年)和早期工业(公元1700-1808年)。该项目将产生人口统计信息、聚落数据和多代理古生态记录的新组合，以创建第一个关于人类如何在生物群规模上塑造大西洋森林的深度时间透视。对考古、历史和生态领域知识的比较分析将产生长期的土地使用数据，并为气候科学、生态系统恢复和旨在未来保护这一关键但受到威胁的环境的政策目标提供“有用的过去”。该项目将综合多方面的“古文化”和古生态数据，以比较不同的土地利用制度如何长期影响巴西南部和中部的大西洋森林。这项研究的新颖性在于创建和整合考古和历史数据，这些数据可以为正在进行的将过去的人类活动纳入保护政策和气候模型的努力提供信息。对1800年前的人类活动进行核算是它们发展的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤，但主要的方法挑战仍然存在，这使得准确的土地利用历史模型比以往任何时候都更加重要。该项目针对这一领域的两个突出问题：第一，无法系统地比较史前和历史上的土地使用和人口数据，第二，难以将环境和植被变化与过去的土地利用等驱动因素直接联系起来。建议的方法可以转移到其他环境中，从而能够对全球热带地区的长期人类影响进行关键的比较。除了对环境足迹的估计外，该项目还将提供对大西洋森林土地利用强度和生物多样性之间的协同作用和权衡的更多了解。

Tropical forests have long been considered ‘pristine’ barriers to past human presence. However, a wealth of recent archaeological research, applying some of the latest surveying, modelling, and biomolecular techniques is showing the long history of human occupation and management of these biodiverse habitats. Tropical cultural heritage is now acknowledged as being critical for the development of more effective policy and conservation efforts in tropical forests the world over. Nevertheless, comparative information on the long-term human history of tropical forests at the centennial scale and above remains limited in many key regions.The project aims to understand how long-term human land-use has impacted the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, one of the most threatened tropical forests in the 21st century. Focusing on changes to its ecology, and associated earth systems, caused by human activity, it will capture the timing and extent of environmental impacts between three focal periods. These represent major transitions in subsistence and demographic regimes: Pre-Columbian (before AD1500), Colonial (AD1500-1700), and Early Industrial (AD1700-1808). The project will produce a novel combination of demographic information, settlement data, and multi-proxy palaeoecological records to create the first deep time perspective on how humans have shaped the Atlantic Forest at a biome scale. The comparative analysis of archaeological, historical, and ecological domain knowledge will produce long-term land use data and a ‘usable past’ for climate science, ecosystem restoration, and policy goals that aim to protect this crucial, but threatened, environment into the future.The project will synthesise multifaceted “palaeocultural” and palaeoecological data to compare how different land use regimes have impacted the Atlantic Forest of southern and central Brazil over the long term. The novelty of this research lies in the creation and integration of archaeological and historical data that can inform ongoing efforts to incorporate past human activity into conservation policy and climate models. Accounting for pre-1800 human activity is the next logical step in their development yet major methodological challenges remain, making accurate models of land use history more important than ever. This project targets two prominent problems in this arena: first, the inability to systematically compare prehistoric and historic land use and population data, and second, the difficulty of directly linking environmental and vegetational change to drivers such as past land use. The proposed approach is transferable to other settings, enabling crucial comparisons of the long-term human impacts across the global tropics to take place. Beyond estimates of environmental footprints, the project will also provide a greater understanding of synergies and trade-offs between land use intensity and biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest.