Frequent disturbances enhanced the resilience of past human populations

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Riris, Philip; Silva, Fabio; Crema, Enrico; Palmisano, Alessio; Robinson, Erick; Siegel, Peter E.; French, Jennifer C.; Jorgensen, Erlend Kirkeng; Maezumi, Shira Yoshi; Solheim, Steinar; Bates, Jennifer; Davies, Benjamin; Oh, Yongje; Ren, Xiaolin
• 署名单位: Bournemouth University; University of Cambridge; University of Turin; Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE); Desert Research Institute NSHE; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Montclair State University; University of Liverpool; Max Planck Society; University of Oslo; Seoul National University (SNU); Tufts University; Chinese Academy of Sciences; Institute for the History of Natural Science, CAS
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-5370
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07354-8
• 发表日期: 2024-05-23
• 关键词: climate variability; collapse; impacts

摘要

The record of past human adaptations provides crucial lessons for guiding responses to crises in the future 1-3 . To date, there have been no systematic global comparisons of humans' ability to absorb and recover from disturbances through time 4,5 . Here we synthesized resilience across a broad sample of prehistoric population time-frequency data, spanning 30,000 years of human history. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of population decline show that frequent disturbances enhance a population's capacity to resist and recover from later downturns. Land-use patterns are important mediators of the strength of this positive association: farming and herding societies are more vulnerable but also more resilient overall. The results show that important trade-offs exist when adopting new or alternative land-use strategies. Analysis of population decline shows that frequent disturbances enhance a population's capacity to resist and recover from downturns and that trade-offs exist when adopting new or alternative land-use strategies.