Human Ecodynamics

A B S T R A C T Human ecodynamics (H.E.) refers to processes of stability, resilience, and change in socio-ecological relationships or systems. H.E. research involves interdisciplinary study of the human condition as it affects and is affected by the rest of the non-human world. In this paper, we review the intellectual history of the human ecodynamics concept over the past several decades, as it has emerged out of classical ecology, anthropology, behavioral ecology, resilience theory, historical ecology, and related fields, especially with respect to the study of long-term socioecological change. Those who study human ecodynamics reject the notion that humans should be considered external to the environments in which they live and have lived for millennia. Many are interested in the resilience and sustainability of past human-natural configurations, often striving to extract lessons from the past that can benefit society today. H.E. research, involving the study of paleoenvironments and archaeology, has taken shape around a series of methodological advances that facilitate the study of past chronology, pa-leoecology, paleodemography, mobility, trade, and social networks. It is only through integrated study of 'coupled human-natural systems'—'socio-ecosystems'—that we can hope to understand dynamic human-environmental interactions and begin to manage them for sustainable goals. Local and traditional or Indigenous knowledge provides another important influence to human ecodynamics research, and we explore how such knowledge can provide both expert witness into the operation of socioecological systems and insight into the human/cultural dimensions of those systems. Ultimately, we conclude that human ecodynamics is more encompassing than a number of related approaches and can provide a nexus for productive research. Through its interdisciplinary breadth, the framework unites scholarship that tends to be more isolated to address complex problems that are best tackled with diverse perspectives.

Resumen Este artículo presenta evidencia de un mega El Niño ocurrido alrededor de ca. 600 d.C. registrada en el sitio arqueo-lógico Huaca 20-Complejo Maranga. Se discute las dinámicas hombre-medio ambiente (ecodinámicas humanas), que pudieron haber sucedido a nes del Periodo Intermedio Temprano en este sitio y en otros asentamientos de los valles de Lima. Se compara también estos datos con información contemporánea procedente de la Costa Norte y se propone que este periodo de stress ambiental pudo haber signiicado un momento de oportunidad para las sociedades del Periodo Intermedio Temprano. Palavras clave: cultura Lima, El Niño, ecodinámicas humanas, Periodo Intermedio Temprano, Costa Central, Andes. Abstract HUMAN ECO-DYNAMICS IN HUACA 20: REASSESING THE IMPACT OF EL NIÑO AT THE END OF THE EARLY INTERMEDIATE PERIOD is article presents evidence of a mega Niño event that transpired around ca. 600 d.C. recovered at the archaeological site of Huaca 20-Complejo Maranga and discusses the human eco-dynamics that could have happened at the end of the Early Intermediate Period in this site and other settlements of the Lima Valleys. is information is compared with contemporary data from the North Coast. I propose that this period of environmental stress could have signiied a time of opportunities for some societies of the Early Intermediate Period.

The paper aims to reveal one integrated global map which points out the major geographical inequalities in providing basic utilities across the countries using multivariate analysis and thematic cartography. Sixteen indicators with global coverage were selected taking into account the waste collection services, sanitation facilities, drinking water sources, energy, electricity, habitat and demographic conditions. Several data are broken down for the total, urban and rural population in order to outline the rural-urban disparities between and within countries. A special focus is given to waste collection coverage, in order to compute a comprehensive global assessment of this key indicator of public health, which is one of the poorest monitored basic utility. The world countries were divided into 10 classes according to the hierarchical cluster analysis. Each class has particular features outlining the gaps between high, middle and low-income countries with direct impact on quality of life, public health, and environment.

This paper discusses the social effects that a very strong El Niño event or events that occurred at the end of the Early Intermediate Period could have had on the Lima culture of the Central Coast of Peru from the perspective of the archaeological site of Huaca 20. This site was a component of the Maranga Complex in the lower Rimac Valley during the Late Lima Period. For this purpose, I use a comprehensive and diachronic approach that takes into account the whole Lima culture occupation documented at this site. Huaca 20 is one of the very few Lima culture sites that has been extensively excavated through several years since the 1970s. I compare the El Niño evidence from Huaca 20 with similar information from several other coastal Early Intermediate Period sites where El Niño impacts have been reported. I use this evidence to discuss how various contemporary coastal cultures had diverse cultural reactions to the same phenomenon.

The cultivation of aroids (herbaceous plants with starchy corms) is the foundation of Oceanic societies, yet the study of prehistoric atoll agriculture (utilizing Cyrtosperma chamissonis) has been almost totally neglected. Aroid pit agricultural features, some measuring up to 100 m long and 20 m wide, excavated in the Marshall Islands (center ca. 8ЊN latitude, 170ЊE longitude) provide the first chronometric dates (1910 Ϯ 70 B.P., Beta-79576) for this type of cultivation practice associated with coral atolls found throughout the Pacific. Excavations through an aroid pit cultivation pit rim identified a stratigraphic sequence beginning with the sterile subsoil, an A horizon deeply buried under pit spoil dirt, and a prehistoric midden deposit beginning below the surface A horizon. Granulometric analysis of sediments and identification of foraminifers documented the nearshore lagoon as the source for all noncultural sediments. Anthropophilic land snails (Gastrocopta pediculus and Lamellidea pusilla) in the dated, buried A horizon is a firm basis for confirming the presence of humans near initial colonization (ca. 2000 B.P.) and anchors the culture-historical sequence for the longterm study of human impacts to low coral islands. Consequently, on-going analyses of plant opal phytoliths, starch grains, and charcoal from the buried A horizon, should document the nature of early atoll ecology prior to significant human modification. As aroid pit construction is associated, in many examples, with traditional property boundaries, detailed mapping and dating of these cultivation systems should relate to changes in land tenure and prehistoric social organization. ᭧

We apply a phenomenological perspective on landscape and geographic information system (GIS) applications in order to theorize how human perception and agency were likely implicated in processes of the formation of the late pre-Hispanic Tarascan State of West Central Mexico. The relatedness of landscape features in space or place-based perception has been well theorized; here, we further consider the relationality of places through time. In the changing landscape of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, the demographic and political core of the Tarascan State, temporality must have been vitally important to inhabitants of the basin. Utilizing GIS, we construct not only map-based analyses of the changing environment but also create viewsheds of past landscapes in order to see what past inhabitants of the basin would have seen in order to demonstrate that temporality would have been easily mapped in the landscape and its features. Finally, we discuss the role of temporality and cultural memory in an embodied landscape to model the various lake levels that past peoples could have anticipated through time based on their perceptions and memories.

Low coverage of urban and rural population to waste collection services leads to various environmental threats caused by uncontrolled waste disposal. New EU regulations on waste management issues transposed into national laws have improved this sector, but, the population access to such services is still low compared to others new EU members. A multi-scale approach of this indicator is a necessary tool
for a proper analysis of this environmental issue. The maps reveal that Romanian development regions (NUTS 2) have the lowest coverage rates at EU level in 2008. Furthermore, major disparities are reflected between Romanian counties in 2010. Thematic maps outline a comparative analysis at national and regional scale (Romanian counties & cities and communes of North-East Region) between urban vs rural areas in 2010. These geographical approaches are necessary for a better
monitoring process of waste management sector.

This paper will focus on the ecology of the first Anatomically Modern Humans in SW Iberia based on the rock shelter of Vale Boi (Algarve, Portugal), a site with a long stratigraphic record starting with Late Middle Paleolithic followed by early Gravettian, Proto-Solutrean, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. Early Gravettian remains are present in various areas and different levels of the site, and are dated to c. 32 ka cal BP, corresponding to the earliest modern human occupation in SW Iberia. These communities most likely came from the Iberian Mediterranean coast as bone technology and body ornaments seem to confirm. The Gravettian of Vale Boi provides clear evidence of an intensification and diversification of dietary resources from very early, including the use of grease-rendering. Here, reconstruction of the Gravettian human ecology at Vale Boi is based on the diversity of human occupations, focusing mostly on diachronic changes in the patterns of resources acquisition and land-use, but also on subsistence, technological, social and symbolic elements.

Human ecodynamics (H.E.) refers to processes of stability, resilience, and change in socio-ecological relationships or systems. H.E. research involves interdisciplinary study of the human condition as it affects and is affected by the rest of the non-human world. In this paper, we review the intellectual history of the human ecodynamics concept over the past several decades, as it has emerged out of classical ecology, anthropology, behavioral ecology, resilience theory, historical ecology, and related fields, especially with respect to the study of long-term socioecological change. Those who study human ecodynamics reject the notion that humans should be considered external to the environments in which they live and have lived for millennia. Many are interested in the resilience and sustainability of past human-natural configurations, often striving to extract lessons from the past that can benefit society today. H.E. research, involving the study of paleoenvironments and archaeology, has taken shape around a series of methodological advances that facilitate the study of past chronology, paleoecology, paleodemography, mobility, trade, and social networks. It is only through integrated study of 'coupled human-natural systems'-'socio-ecosystems'-that we can hope to understand dynamic human-environmental interactions and begin to manage them for sustainable goals. Local and traditional or Indigenous knowledge provides another important influence to human ecodynamics research, and we explore how such knowledge can provide both expert witness into the operation of socioecological systems and insight into the human/cultural dimensions of those systems. Ultimately, we conclude that human ecodynamics is more encompassing than a number of related approaches and can provide a nexus for productive research. Through its interdisciplinary breadth, the framework unites scholarship that tends to be more isolated to address complex problems that are best tackled with diverse perspectives.

The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer long-term records of past landcover from pollen data, (3) to present a new project (LAND-CLIM: LAND cover-CLIMate interactions in NW Europe during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for five selected time windows of the Holocene, and (4) to discuss the implications and future directions in climate and vegetation/land-cover modeling, and in the assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in land-cover on the regional climate through altered feedbacks. The existing ALCC scenarios show large discrepancies between them, and few cover time periods older than AD 800. When these scenarios are used to assess the impact of human land-use on climate, contrasting results are obtained. It emphasizes the need for methods such as the REVEALS model-based land-cover reconstructions. They might help to fine-tune descriptions of past landcover and lead to a better understanding of how long-term changes in ALCC might have influenced climate. The REVEALS model is demonstrated to provide better estimates of the regional vegetation/land-cover changes than the traditional use of pollen percentages. This will achieve a robust assessment of land cover at regional-to continental-spatial scale throughout the Holocene. We present maps of REVEALS estimates for the percentage cover of 10 plant functional types (PFTs) at 200 BP and 6000 BP, and of the two open-land PFTs "grassland" and "agricultural land" at five time-windows from 6000 BP to recent time. The LAND-CLIM results are expected to provide crucial data to reassess ALCC estimates for a better understanding of the land suface-atmosphere interactions.

The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer long-term records of past landcover from pollen data, (3) to present a new project (LAND-CLIM: LAND cover-CLIMate interactions in NW Europe during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for five selected time windows of the Holocene, and (4) to discuss the implications and future directions in climate and vegetation/land-cover modeling, and in the assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in land-cover on the regional climate through altered feedbacks. The existing ALCC scenarios show large discrepancies between them, and few cover time periods older than AD 800. When these scenarios are used to assess the impact of human land-use on climate, contrasting results are obtained. It emphasizes the need for methods such as the REVEALS model-based land-cover reconstructions. They might help to fine-tune descriptions of past landcover and lead to a better understanding of how long-term changes in ALCC might have influenced climate. The REVEALS model is demonstrated to provide better estimates of the regional vegetation/land-cover changes than the traditional use of pollen percentages. This will achieve a robust assessment of land cover at regional-to continental-spatial scale throughout the Holocene. We present maps of REVEALS estimates for the percentage cover of 10 plant functional types (PFTs) at 200 BP and 6000 BP, and of the two open-land PFTs "grassland" and "agricultural land" at five time-windows from 6000 BP to recent time. The LAND-CLIM results are expected to provide crucial data to reassess ALCC estimates for a better understanding of the land suface-atmosphere interactions.