Managing wilderness? Holocene-scale, human-related disturbance dynamics as revealed in a remote, forested area in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985939%3A_____%2F22%3A00556235" target="_blank" >RIV/67985939:_____/22:00556235 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/60076658:12310/22:43905056 RIV/61389005:_____/22:00556235 RIV/00216208:11310/22:10456499 RIV/62690094:18460/22:50019134 RIV/00216208:11620/22:10456499

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836221080762ef" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836221080762ef</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09596836221080762" target="_blank" >10.1177/09596836221080762</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Managing wilderness? Holocene-scale, human-related disturbance dynamics as revealed in a remote, forested area in the Czech Republic

Original language description

In the lowlands and uplands of Central Europe, which were inhabited continuously from the very start of the Holocene to the present times, it is difficult to find territories suitable for investigation of natural baselines. For this reason, we picked the complicated rocky terrain of one upland area in NE Bohemia called Adrspach because, based on the absence of archeological finds, it was supposed to have never been deforested or managed by people. The remote and inhospitable character of this particular area further encouraged this assumption. To our great surprise, however, high-resolution pollen analyses, supplemented by analyses of non-pollen palynomorphs and microscopic charcoals reveals that the local forest ecosystem had a dynamic development over entire Holocene. We were able to correlate this high-resolution understanding of vegetation successions with repeated fire disturbances. Was this fire disturbance dynamic natural? Subsequent archeological exploration and excavation in the area brought unexpected evidence, pointing to rather continuous human presence throughout most of the Holocene. From the Early Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic, available evidence suggests a hunter-gatherer mode of resource management. From the start of the Late-Holocene (ca 4 ka BP), the occurrence of coprophilous fungal spores and secondary anthropogenic pollen indicators suggest this area was impacted by recurrent domestic animal grazing. Testing this approach also in other remote forested areas of Central Europe, we argue, can have far-reaching implications for understanding long term human-environment agency by transforming our understanding of alternative subsistence and land use strategies during prehistory. At the same time, this can significantly alter existing concepts used in Central European nature conservation strategies, which tend to be based on an underlying assumption that our work challenges - the survival of little impacted wilderness at the Holocene scale.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Holocene

ISSN

0959-6836

e-ISSN

1477-0911

Volume of the periodical

32

Issue of the periodical within the volume

6

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

584-596

UT code for WoS article

000768421100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85126049648