Climate impacts on human settlement and agricultural activities in northern Norway revealed through sediment biogeochemistry.

ABSTRACT: Disentangling the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the environment is a major challenge in paleoenvironmental research. Here, we used fecal sterols and other biogeochemical compounds in lake sediments from northern Norway to identify both natural and anthropogenic signals of environmental change during the late Holocene. The area was first occupied by humans and their grazing animals at ∼2,250 ± 75 calendar years before 1950 AD (calendar years before present). The arrival of humans is indicated by an abrupt increase in coprostanol (and its epimer epicoprostanol) in the sediments and an associated increase in 5β-stigmastanol (and 5β-epistigmastanol), which resulted from human and animal feces washing into the lake. Human settlement was accompanied by an abrupt incre

SUBMITTER: D'Anjou RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3528558 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature