What Evidence Exists to Indicate That Prehistoric Humans Had Destructive Impacts on the Environment?
AIA1000-World Prehistory
Major Essay Question: Option 3
What evidence exists to indicate that prehistoric humans had destructive impacts on the environment?
What evidence exists to indicate that prehistoric humans had destructive impacts on the environment?
In recent years, humans have become increasingly concerned with their effect on the planet and its ecosystems. While it is probably true that our impact on the environment on a global scale has never been as great, the difference to prehistoric times is simply due to our increasingly sophisticated technologies and our ever increasing population. It is tempting to believe that our predecessors lived in complete harmony with nature but evidence conducted in this field shows this not to be the case. From the very beginning of human life, people altered their environment. The key is to differentiate between natural impacts and human impacts on the ecosystem, a problem that has left countless researchers offering strong arguments for and against the idea that prehistoric humans led destructive lives.
Many of the challenges we face today-deforestation, soil erosion, desertification and salinization were problems even in ancient times. Archaeologists have evidence that small hunting and gathering groups in various parts of the world used fires to get rid of unwanted vegetation, to flush out game and to help fertilise the land to allow for new grasses to grow for their game. The earliest probable evidence of fire being used deliberately to clear forests was 60,000 years before present in the Kalambo Falls site in Tanzania (Grove, 1995). An example of the use of fire can be found on our very own shores. It is believed that 50,000 years BP human use of fire had altered vegetation patterns and perhaps even climatic patterns enough to cause extinction of numerous large mammals, called "megafauna" (Harris, D and Hillman, G, eds, 1989). Fire was used for various reasons, forcing animals to flee allowing for
Major Essay Question: Option 3
What evidence exists to indicate that prehistoric humans had destructive impacts on the environment?
What evidence exists to indicate that prehistoric humans had destructive impacts on the environment?
In recent years, humans have become increasingly concerned with their effect on the planet and its ecosystems. While it is probably true that our impact on the environment on a global scale has never been as great, the difference to prehistoric times is simply due to our increasingly sophisticated technologies and our ever increasing population. It is tempting to believe that our predecessors lived in complete harmony with nature but evidence conducted in this field shows this not to be the case. From the very beginning of human life, people altered their environment. The key is to differentiate between natural impacts and human impacts on the ecosystem, a problem that has left countless researchers offering strong arguments for and against the idea that prehistoric humans led destructive lives.
Many of the challenges we face today-deforestation, soil erosion, desertification and salinization were problems even in ancient times. Archaeologists have evidence that small hunting and gathering groups in various parts of the world used fires to get rid of unwanted vegetation, to flush out game and to help fertilise the land to allow for new grasses to grow for their game. The earliest probable evidence of fire being used deliberately to clear forests was 60,000 years before present in the Kalambo Falls site in Tanzania (Grove, 1995). An example of the use of fire can be found on our very own shores. It is believed that 50,000 years BP human use of fire had altered vegetation patterns and perhaps even climatic patterns enough to cause extinction of numerous large mammals, called "megafauna" (Harris, D and Hillman, G, eds, 1989). Fire was used for various reasons, forcing animals to flee allowing for
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