Fire as a motor of rapid environmental degradation during the earliest peopling of Malta 7500 years ago

N. Marriner, D. Kaniewski, T. Gambin, B. Gambin, B. Vannière, C. Morhange, M. Djamali, K. Tachikawa, V. Robin, D. Rius, E. Bard

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Holocene colonisation of islands by humans has invariably led to deep-seated changes in landscape dynamics and ecology. In particular, burning was a management tool commonly used by prehistoric societies and it acted as a major driver of environmental change, particularly from the Neolithic onwards. To assess the role of early human impacts (e.g. livestock grazing, forest clearance and the cultivation of marginal land) in shaping “pristine” island landscapes, we here present a 350-year record of fire history and erosion from Malta, straddling the earliest peopling of the island. We show that recurrent anthropogenic burning related to Neolithic agro-pastoral practices began ∼7500 years ago, with well-defined fire-return intervals (FRI) of 15–20 years that engendered erosion and rapid environmental degradation. As early as the Neolithic, this study implies that, in sensitive insular contexts, just a few generations of human activities could rapidly degrade natural islandscapes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)199-205
Number of pages7
JournalQuaternary Science Reviews
Volume212
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 May 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Fire
  • Holocene
  • Human impacts
  • Islands
  • Malta
  • Mediterranean
  • Neolithic
  • Palaeoecology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Archaeology
  • Archaeology
  • Geology

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