Changing Nature of Socio-Ecological Interactions in the Americas: From PalaeoAmerican Through to Present Day

Dear Colleagues,

For their very short existence in geological history, as a species, humans have demonstrated an unparalleled capacity to directly and indirectly impact the Earth’s system at a global scale and we are arguably one of the most influential recent drivers of the planet’s dynamics. The relationship between humans and the environment is complex and the velocity of change and variability of interactions through time are poorly understood. Despite the uncertainties, it is clear that modern humans colonised most of the globe outside the poles by the late Glacial–Holocene transition, thereby introducing a new forcing factor in the environment over at least the last 10,000 years. Human impacts on these different environments, however, were heterogeneous and influenced by a wide range of factors including the cultural development of the emerging societies, historical biogeography, climate change and human migration. From a socio-ecological point of view, the European arrival on the American continent is considered among the most important events that drastically transformed the environmental history of such a large area in the last millennium. In this sense, indigenous depopulation by wars, diseases or slavery, development of new land use strategies, and the introduction of new species promoted a profound change in the socio-ecological scenario of the Americas. Such activities also altered the dynamics and trends of the American ecosystems by introducing new drivers of change.

In this Special Issue, we will explore the signal of the European arrival in past American environments, from local to continental scales, and we welcome contributions from a wide range of Quaternary disciplines. Contributions could be focused in any Quaternary time scale including the determination of the environmental baselines prior to intensive human influence, the arrival of the first Europeans, and present-day socio-ecological dynamics resulting from the invasion. We would encourage studies with an interdisciplinary approach in order to assess the complex interactions resulting from this transformative shift in the history of the American continents.

Dr. Encarni Montoya
Dr. Bronwen S. Whitney
Guest Editors

• Anthropogenic vegetation
• Archaeology
• European invasion
• Land use
• Pre-European peopling
• Late Quaternary
• American depopulation
• Palaeobiogeography
• Palaeoecology
• Vegetation responses