Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions.
The exhibition of increasingly intensive and complex niche construction behaviors through time is a key feature of human evolution, culminating in the advanced capacity for ecosystem engineering exhibited by Homo sapiens A crucial outcome of such behaviors has been the dramatic reshaping of the global biosphere, a transformation whose early origins are increasingly apparent from cumulative archaeological and paleoecological datasets. Such data suggest that, by the Late Pleistocene, humans had begun to engage in activities that have led to alterations in the distributions of a vast array of species across most, if not all, taxonomic groups. Changes to biodiversity have included extinctions, extirpations, and shifts in species composition, diversity, and community structure. We outline key examples of these changes, highlighting findings from the study of new datasets, like ancient DNA (aDNA), stable isotopes, and microfossils, as well as the application of new statistical and computational methods to datasets that have accumulated significantly in recent decades. We focus on four major phases that witnessed broad anthropogenic alterations to biodiversity-the Late Pleistocene global human expansion, the Neolithic spread of agriculture, the era of island colonization, and the emergence of early urbanized societies and commercial networks. Archaeological evidence documents millennia of anthropogenic transformations that have created novel ecosystems around the world. This record has implications for ecological and evolutionary research, conservation strategies, and the maintenance of ecosystem services, pointing to a significant need for broader cross-disciplinary engagement between archaeology and the biological and environmental sciences.
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PG, United Kingdom; Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena D-07743, Germany; boivin@shh.mpg.de.
Nicole L
NL
Boivin
Program in Human Ecology and Archaeobiology, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013; External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501;
Melinda A
MA
Zeder
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom;
Dorian Q
DQ
Fuller
School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia;
Alison
A
Crowther
Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom;
Greger
G
Larson
Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1224;
Jon M
JM
Erlandson
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Tim
T
Denham
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PG, United Kingdom;
Michael D
MD
Petraglia
D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D003710:Demography; D017753:Ecosystem; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D062312:Islands; D014507:Urbanization
Anthropocene; biodiversity; extinctions; invasive species; novel ecosystems