The Broad-Spectrum Revolution at 50: Increasing dietary diversity reflects the heterogeneity of domesticated landscapes

The human side of biodiversity: coevolution of the human niche, palaeo-synanthropy and ecosystem complexity in the deep human past

“…Importantly, non-equilibrium niche construction by generations of human foragers in deep-time perspective is not always about overexploitation and trophic reduction but also can have significant biodiversity-enhancing effects. We thereby join recent nascent critiques [23,24,142,238,239] on models of the expansion of human dietary breadth as a result primarily of environmental deterioration and/or dietary stress, foreclosing the progressive incorporation of 'low-ranked' prey items into forager diets. As an alternative and so far rarely considered perspective, we propose that human-biodiversity coevolution provides a potent context of incipient broad-spectrum diets in the deep human past.…”

“…The resource scarcity paradigm of classical BSF models has already been under pressure for some time [141,238,239] and Janz [240], for example, has shown that some important BSF cases are neither associated with resource depression nor with independent indicators of human dietary stress. To the contrary, in many cases, there is evidence for climatic amelioration and/or increase in local ecological diversity [23,240], emphasizing the importance of attending to BSFs as situated ecological rather than purely economic phenomena. In general, a suite of archaeological data on BFS from the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary points to a key role of complex interactions between human and ecological systems linked to the formation of heterogeneous landscapes with high degrees of resource patchiness [239].…”

“…Interestingly, the dynamic of human–environment systems exemplified by the Pavlovian data suggests that economic intensification and broad-spectrum foraging (BSF) in early hunter–gatherers should not exclusively be conceptualized as a response to resource scarcity and environmental deterioration [236,237] but reconsidered in light of possible shifts in resource abundance and availability wrought by human niche construction efforts. BSF can then be seen as a recursive process linked to human ecological inheritance, notably the crystallization of often-subtle modifications of natural environments, or what with Mueller [23] may be termed incipient ‘patchy domesticated landscapes'. The resource scarcity paradigm of classical BSF models has already been under pressure for some time [141,238,239] and Janz [240], for example, has shown that some important BSF cases are neither associated with resource depression nor with independent indicators of human dietary stress.…”

“…In view of this serious and rapidly aggravating nature crisis engulfing our planet [8][9][10][11][12], scholars have begun to look at the past and to query disciplines such as archaeology to better understand the fundamental processes and parameters that regulate the biosphere and assure a healthy, biodiverse planetary ecosystem [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. While archaeology has indeed much to offer to ongoing debates on species conservation and extinction, rewilding, the evolution of biodiversity and the dynamic interposition of human and earth systems in general [13,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], the discipline has equally contributed to an overall dire outlook on the relationship between human agency and the biosphere [27][28][29][30]. Facing the recognition of human societies as the single major source of biodiversity attrition on the planet today [1,2,29,31,32], framing historically unprecedented 'Anthropocene' conditions [33][34][35][36][37] and novel ecosystems [38,39] that threaten the hospitality and habitability of the Earth as a whole [40], archaeologists have started to map similar processes and their origins in the past to show that the biodiversity crisis has deep-historical roots [17...…”

“…Biodiversity-promoting effects in one part of the system may so incur negative biodiversity consequences in another part of the system. It is therefore imperative to examine the overall patterns and configurations of biodiversity as they emerge within specific human-environment systems [22][23][24]. We also have to carefully take into account the historical and cultural specificities of human behaviour because biodiversity is poorly understood as a purely natural phenomenon but is often co-shaped by human activity [50][51][52], while the relevant human behaviours vary a great deal across space and time.…”