Agricultural activity by humans more than 2,000 years ago had a more significant and lasting impact on the environment than previously thought. The finding -- discovered by a team of international researchers led by the University of British Columbia -- is reported in a new study published today in the journal Science Advances.
The researchers found that an increase in deforestation and agricultural activity during the Bronze Age in Ireland reached a tipping point that affected Earth's nitrogen cycle -- the process that keeps nitrogen, a critical element necessary for life, circulating between the atmosphere, land and oceans.
"Scientists are increasingly recognizing that humans have always impacted their ecosystems, but finding early evidence of significant and lasting changes is rare," said Eric Guiry, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow in UBC's department of anthropology. "By looking at when and how ancient societies began to change soil nutrients at a molecular level, we now have a deeper understanding of the turning point at which humans first began to cause environmental change."
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:41AM (7 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:29AM (2 children)
Yes, it does make sense. But there are a lot of people who cling to the convenient notion that the world is so much bigger than a person that not even a large group of people can leave a lasting mark. If that thinking was correct, it wouldn't matter what everyone did to the environment, and not heeding it is one less thing to worry about in a world full of all kinds of scary things to worry about, such as enemy tribes and nations, large ferocious carnivores, poisonous snakes, locust swarms, droughts, storms, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, contagious diseases, and if all those natural things weren't enough, there's also evil spirits, angry gods, terra incognita, and, well, unknown unknowns.
It may have been true long ago, maybe in Stone Age times, that there weren't enough people with enough power to matter. It sure isn't true today. We cannot ever again have ourselves a total war, no holds barred. Not with nuclear bombs in the arsenal.
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:56AM (1 child)
But of course we can! Once!
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 19 2018, @05:50PM
"Jeff Dunham: Can you stop a speeding bullet? Melvin: [pauses] Once. [audience laughs] Shut up! It hurts like hell!" https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Dunham [wikiquote.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Tuesday June 19 2018, @06:53AM (3 children)
Population density went from 1 person per 10 square miles to 10 people per square mile in the UK as a whole in the bronze age,
(Figures based on poor memory and extreme guesswork).
How big is Ireland? and, given that the bronze age was the golden age in Mesopotamia, which is like 1,000 times bigger,
and agriculture massively more organised, having started 4,000 years earlier, and China was doing well at the time too,
I am not saying the earth's atmosphere, and indeed, Nitrogen cycle was not heavily impacted at the time, and the
results visible in Ireland, but somehow, I think its rather unlikely that the Irish were to blame for a world wide catastrophe
that long ago.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 19 2018, @01:53PM (2 children)
From TFA (the fscking abstract:)
While these results are specific to Ireland during the Bronze Age, Guiry said the findings have global implications.
"The effect of human activities on soil nitrogen composition may be traceable wherever humans have extensively modified landscapes for agriculture," he explained. "Our findings have significant potential to serve as a model for future research."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:30PM (1 child)
Also not mentioned is that the "nitrogen cycle" is quite well understood these days, and farmers will plant nitrogen fixing crops on land not currently in use.
A Google Earth tour of any/all of the British Isles shows an enormous percentage of the land set up for crops or sheep, but seldom a crop or a sheep in sight.
Yet somehow the land stays short-grass covered, and doesn't seem to regenerate forests.
Are these lands being rested (rotated grazing), restoring the nitrogen cycle, or do people there simply have a mowing obsession or something against planting trees?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:39PM
But still, I think there's room left to consider a mowing obsession part of the puzzle. Mowing regularly places your mark on the land, letting it regrow makes it look abandoned, and that encourages crime, so there's even a criminal justice rationalization for it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?