Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
Department of Near East Languages and Civilizations and the Price Lab for the Digital Humanities, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 14;16(4):e0246662. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246662. eCollection 2021.
In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in earth system models is currently oversimplified. As a result, there are large uncertainties in the current understanding of the past and current state of the earth system. In order to improve representation of the variety and scale of impacts that past land use had on the earth system, a global effort is underway to aggregate and synthesize archaeological and historical evidence of land use systems. Here we present a simple, hierarchical classification of land use systems designed to be used with archaeological and historical data at a global scale and a schema of codes that identify land use practices common to a range of systems, both implemented in a geospatial database. The classification scheme and database resulted from an extensive process of consultation with researchers worldwide. Our scheme is designed to deliver consistent, empirically robust data for the improvement of land use models, while simultaneously allowing for a comparative, detailed mapping of land use relevant to the needs of historical scholars. To illustrate the benefits of the classification scheme and methods for mapping historical land use, we apply it to Mesopotamia and Arabia at 6 kya (c. 4000 BCE). The scheme will be used to describe land use by the Past Global Changes (PAGES) LandCover6k working group, an international project comprised of archaeologists, historians, geographers, paleoecologists, and modelers. Beyond this, the scheme has a wide utility for creating a common language between research and policy communities, linking archaeologists with climate modelers, biodiversity conservation workers and initiatives.
在工业革命之前的 12000 年里，人类活动导致了土地覆盖、动植物分布、地表水文和生物地球化学循环的重大变化。地球系统模型表明，这种人为的土地覆盖变化影响了区域和全球气候。然而，目前地球系统模型对过去土地利用的表示过于简单化。因此，人们对过去和当前地球系统的理解存在很大的不确定性。为了改善对过去土地利用对地球系统的多样性和规模影响的表示，目前正在全球范围内开展一项努力，以汇总和综合考古学和历史上土地利用系统的证据。在这里，我们提出了一种简单的、分层的土地利用系统分类方法，旨在与全球范围内的考古学和历史数据一起使用，并提出了一个识别一系列系统中常见土地利用实践的代码方案，这两个方案都在一个地理空间数据库中实施。该分类方案和数据库是通过与世界各地的研究人员进行广泛协商而产生的。我们的方案旨在为改进土地利用模型提供一致的、经验可靠的数据，同时允许对与历史学者需求相关的土地利用进行比较、详细的映射。为了说明分类方案和绘制历史土地利用图方法的好处，我们将其应用于 6 千年前的美索不达米亚和阿拉伯。该方案将由过去全球变化（PAGES）土地覆盖 6k 工作组用于描述土地利用，该工作组由考古学家、历史学家、地理学家、古生态学家和建模师组成。除此之外，该方案还具有广泛的用途，可以在研究和政策界之间创建一种通用语言，将考古学家与气候建模师、生物多样性保护工作者和倡议联系起来。
