Human transformations of the Earth / Charles French.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

French, C. A. I. (Charles A. I.), author.

Series:

Studying scientific archaeology ; 7.

Studying scientific archaeology ; 7

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Soil science in archaeology.

Nature--Effect of human beings on.

Nature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 volume) : illustrations (some color)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, England : Oxbow Books, [2022]

Summary:

This book charts and explains how human activities have shaped and altered the development of soils in many parts of the world, taking advantage of five decades of soil analytical work in many archaeological landscapes from around the globe. The core of this volume describes and illustrates major transformations of soils and the processes involved in these that have occurred during the Holocene and how these relate to human activities as much as natural causes and trajectories of development, right up to the present day. This is done in two ways: first by examining a number of major processes and impacts on the landscape such as Holocene warming and the development of woodland, clearance and agricultural activities, and second by examining the trajectories of these changes in soil systems in different palaeo-environmental situations in several diverse parts of the world. The transformations identified are relevant to prevalent themes of today such as over-development and soil, land and environmental degradation and resilience. The studies articulated relate to Britain, southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean basin, East Africa, northern India and Peru in South America.

Contents:

Geoarchaeological approaches in archaeology

Methodological approaches

Soil transformation trajectories in temperate European landscapes

Major soil transformation trajectories in southern Mediterranean landscape systems

Major soil transformation trajectories in arid soil systems

Timescales and longevity of soil processes

Understanding long-term resilience in transformed soils.

Notes:

Print version record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781789259216

1789259215

9781789259223

1789259223

OCLC:

1492942149