Posted on 10/15/2018 9:48:30 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
It is now possible to tell the story of mankind's presence and evolution on the planet by analyzing trends in soil and sediment accumulation of fecal sterols, chemical compounds which are crucial in human physiology. Scientists at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes of the National Research Council (CNR-IDPA) have identified and dated traces of sterols within the sediments of two New Zealand lakes, thus proving the presence of the Maori people who, starting from around 1280, colonized the two oceanic islands and cleared them of forests in just a few decades to make space for fields and pastures. The study has just been published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.
The analyses were carried out in the laboratories of Venice on cores of sediment taken from Lakes Diamond and Kirkpatrick, located on New Zealand's South Island. By analyzing the microparticles of coal and pollen, researchers had already found evidence of significant forest fires as well as of sudden changes to the New Zealand landscape during the fourteenth century, when the deforested areas made space available for grass and shrubs to grow quickly and in a manner that was without precedent. Archaeological and paleoecological evidence quite conclusively attribute the deforestation to the Maori people, but this new study provides definitive scientific proof of their arrival in the area and of the enormous impact that a group of so few individuals had on the native forest in a very short time, to the extent that it was irreversibly jeopardized. In addition, the research demonstrates the validity of the method tested by the Italian researchers for reconstructing the history of humankind's presence in a given region.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
It’s an up-and-coming field of study; unfortunately, all the world’s leading experts are employed at San Francisco State University.
The beat the europeans by just 350~ years but they are “natives” and white men “colonists”!
Typo? You left out the “h”.
In the same way, the Brazilian rain forest was once a vibrant human landscape of canals, farms, and fertile fields.
When most of the native Americans died off from Eurasian diseases (not done by Europeans on purpose), the land went back to jungle.
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