WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY AND GLOBAL CHANGE - DID OUR ANCESTORS IGNITE THE ICE-AGE

The widespread belief that the development of modern science and techn ology since the Renaissance is responsible for anthropogenic global cl imate change has important ideological overtones as it underestimates the fundamental idiosyncrasy of cultural organization. Large-scale ant hropogenic disturbance of the natural order began in prehistoric times , probably more than a million years ago, and the domestication of fir e was the major cause of this change. Early systematic burning has amp lified the savanna landscape, particularly in Africa, and large-scale climatic change is a likely result. Recent estimates suggest that the age of Homo, of the first stone tools and of the shift to cooler and d rier conditions at the beginning of the Pleistocene, virtually coincid e at 2.4 to 2.5 Ma. We raise the hypothesis that this was also the age of fire domestication, causing large-scale amplification of the savan na landscape. We propose that this early human interference may have b een an important factor leading to the climate destabilization charact eristic of the Pleistocene. We indicate that African Lake deposits as well as the deep sea sedimentary record around the affected continents , e.g. in the Angola Basin, provide a more reliable record of early an thropogenic global change than the continental sediments. Dedicated st ratigraphical research of the former deposits, using biomolecular arch aeological approaches, is likely to provide the evidence by which our hypothesis may be falsified. We particularly advocate the use of immun ological techniques as they reveal macromolecular structure rather tha n sheer composition.