Data from: Long livestock farming history and human landscape shaping revealed by lake sediment DNA

The reconstruction of human-driven, Earth-shaping dynamics is important for understanding past human/environment interactions and for helping human societies that currently face global changes. However, it is often challenging to distinguish the effects of the climate from human activities on environmental changes. Here we evaluate an approach based on DNA metabarcoding used on lake sediments to provide the first high-resolution reconstruction of plant cover and livestock farming history since the Neolithic Period. By comparing these data with a previous reconstruction of erosive event frequency, we show that the most intense erosion period was caused by deforestation and overgrazing by sheep and cowherds during the Late Iron Age and Roman Period. Tracking plants and domestic mammals using lake sediment DNA (lake sedDNA) is a new, promising method for tracing past human practices, and it provides a new outlook of the effects of anthropogenic factors on landscape-scale changes.重建人类驱动的地表塑造动态过程，对于理解过往人类与环境的交互作用，以及助力当前面临全球变化的人类社会而言，均具有重要意义。然而，在环境变化中区分气候因素与人类活动的影响往往颇具挑战。在此，我们评估了一种基于湖泊沉积物DNA宏条形码（DNA metabarcoding）的研究方法，借此首次实现了新石器时代以来植被覆盖与畜牧养殖历史的高分辨率重建。通过将这些数据与此前的侵蚀事件频率重建结果进行对比，我们证实，最为剧烈的侵蚀期发生于铁器时代晚期与罗马时期，其成因是森林砍伐以及绵羊、牛群放牧引发的过度放牧。利用湖泊沉积物DNA（lake sedDNA）追踪古植被与家养哺乳动物的踪迹，是一种新兴且极具前景的还原过往人类活动的方法，也为探究人为因素对景观尺度环境变化的影响提供了全新视角。