CLAFS, a Holistic climatic-ecological-anthropogenic hypothesis on Easter Island's deforestation and cultural change: Proposals and testing prospects

Autor: Encarnación Montoya, Santiago Giralt, Valentí Rull, Irantzu Seco, Raymond S. Bradley, William J. D'Andrea, Olga Margalef, Alberto Sáez, Sergi Pla-Rabes, Núria Cañellas-Boltà
Přispěvatelé: Generalitat de Catalunya, Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (España), Universitat de Barcelona
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2018
Předmět:
Zdroj: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 6 (2018)
Dipòsit Digital de la UB
Universidad de Barcelona
Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
instname
Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
Popis: This paper reviews the existing hypotheses concerning the cultural shift from the Ancient Cult (AC) to the Birdman Cult (BC) that occurred on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) during the last millennium and introduces a holistic new hypothesis called CLAFS (Climate-Landscape-Anthropogenic Feedbacks and Synergies), which considers a variety of potential drivers of cultural change and their interactions. The CLAFS hypothesis can be tested with future paleoecological studies on new sedimentary sequences such as the new continuous and coherent record encompassing the last millennium from Rano Kao (KAO08-03) using a combination of pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP), charcoal, and fecal lipid analyses, at decadal to multidecadal resolution. The Kao record should be compared with other continuous records of the last millennium available for the two other freshwater bodies of the island, Rano Aroi and Rano Raraku, to obtain an island-wide perspective of spatio-temporal deforestation patterns in relation to climatic shifts and human activities. The CLAFS hypothesis predicts that the shift from the AC to the BC was associated with the drying out and deforestation of Rano Raraku (the center of the AC) by ~1,570 CE, followed by human migration to Rano Kao (the social center of the BC), where freshwater and forests were still available. Under the CLAFS scenario, this migration would have occurred by ~1,600 CE. Findings to the contrary would require modification and refinement, or outright rejection, of the CLAFS hypothesis and the consideration of alternate hypotheses compatible with new paleoecological evidence. Regardless the final results, archeological evidence will be required to link climatic and ecological events with cultural developments. © 2018 Rull, Montoya, Seco, Cañellas-Boltà, Giralt, Margalef, Pla-Rabes, D'Andrea, Bradley and Sáez.
This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (project CGL2007-60932/BTE) and the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (grant 2014 SGR 1207).
Databáze: OpenAIRE