By J. Daniel Rogers
When our team has a new publication we post a brief announcement. I cannot claim much credit for the publication mentioned below, but I was glad to be part of the project. I am author 13 of 120. Yes, 120 co-authors! The core research team was led by Lucas Stephens and included my Smithsonian colleague Torben Rick. The article was recently published in the journal Science.
Stephens, L., et al. 2019 Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use, Science, 30 Aug 2019: Vol. 365, Issue 6456, pp. 897-902. DOI: 10.1126/science.aax1192 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/897
A couple weeks ago the article was named one of the 10 most popular scientific discoveries from the National Museum of Natural History for 2019. Every year the staff of Natural History produce hundreds of publications and we are honored to be singled out. You can find details here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2019/12/31/10-popular-scientific-discoveries-2019/
In fields ranging from biodiversity, to environmental modeling, to human ecology it is routinely recognized that on-going research would benefit from a deeper historical knowledge of how and when humans began having a serious impact on the environment. Although archaeologists around the world routinely study human interaction with the environment, there was no systematic assessment that brought the diverse information together. Using a crowd sourcing strategy, the authors collected a standardized set of information in order to measure the timing, locations, and extent of human impacts. All 120 co-authors contributed to some aspect of the research process; either planning recommendations, data, writing, and/or editorial input. A total of 255 archaeologists contributed data reflecting their regional expertise.
The results of the study show that major transformation of the planet by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and herders occurred by 3000 years ago, much earlier than expected. The changes accelerated with the wide-spread adoption of agriculture. At the regional level the results provide a starting point for comparative analysis and a baseline for further study of the long history of how humans have changed the world.