Palaeo-perspectives on anthropogenic soil loss and landscape resilience: An introduction

This paper provides an introduction and context for a series of empirical-historical case 15 studies in a joint Virtual Special Issue (VSI) of Geoarchaeology and Journal of 16 Quaternary Science that offer a palaeo-perspective on anthropogenic soil loss and 17 landscape resilience. The articles cover a range of different environments and 18 timescales, and seek to address the overarching question of how much erosion has 19 been accelerated due to human action. They potentially allow the identification of a 20 pre-disturbance baseline on which a subsequent increase of anthropogenic causation 21 was superimposed. In several cases, this onset – along with associated actions to 22 conserve soil (e.g. via agrarian terrace construction) - can traced back to around 4000 23 years ago.