Anderson, A

Clark, G

Haberle, S

Larson, G

Seetah, K

Anderson, Atholl

Clark, Geoffrey

Haberle, Simon

Larson, Greger

Seetah, Krish

Oxford University Research Archive

EDITORIALpublished: 18 May 2022doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.915306Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | www.frontiersin.org 1 May 2022 | Volume 10 | Article 915306Edited and reviewed by:Franco Biondi,University of Nevada, United States*Correspondence:Krish Seetahkseetah@stanford.eduSpecialty section:This article was submitted toPaleoecology,a section of the journalFrontiers in Ecology and EvolutionReceived: 07 April 2022Accepted: 27 April 2022Published: 18 May 2022Citation:Anderson A, Clark G, Haberle S,Larson G and Seetah K (2022)Editorial: Early Human Colonization ofRemote Indian Ocean Islands and ItsEcological Impacts.Front. Ecol. Evol. 10:915306.doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.915306Editorial: Early Human Colonizationof Remote Indian Ocean Islands andIts Ecological ImpactsAtholl Anderson 1, Geoffrey Clark 1, Simon Haberle 1, Greger Larson 2 and Krish Seetah 3*1Department of Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT,Australia, 2 Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art,University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3Department of Anthropology, School of Humanities and Sciences, StanfordUniversity, Stanford, CA, United StatesKeywords: migration, colonization, biodiversity, environmental change, human habitationEditorial on the Research TopicEarly Human Colonization of Remote Indian Ocean Islands and Its Ecological ImpactsThe remote islands of the tropical Indian Ocean (Madagascar, Comoros, Mascarenes, Seychelles,Chagos, Maldives, Cocos, and Christmas Island) lie >250 km from continental shores. As aresult, their systematic colonization required offshore seafaring that began 4,000 bp. Despitethis capability, many islands remained uninhabited 500 years ago, and histories of habitationand environmental change upon others remain conspicuously uncertain among those of oceanicislands generally (Anderson et al., 2018a). Our topic considered the relationships of colonizationtiming and substantial ecological change. The conjunction of these highlights the fundamentalissue of distinguishing natural from cultural causation in ancient sedimentary, ecological andtaphonomic phenomena.Insular distribution of commensal animals can elucidate sources of human migration. Rochaet al. used historical records and DNA from modern and museum samples to explore thedistribution and dispersal patterns of house geckos. Their results demonstrate how animals canbe used as proxies to identify possible pre-European migration routes. Thomson et al. found thatblack rats of historical age on Christmas Island were from Southeast Asia, while those on theCocos Islands had widespread origins. Multiple and continuing introductions of rats and geckos,however, have obscured older patterns require additional research. Recurrent human colonizationof Mauritius discussed by Seetah et al. showed how colonialism drove demographic and ecologicalprocesses of environmental degradation. Albert et al., compared historical vertebrate extinctionbetweenMauritius and Reunion and found greater extinction on Reunionwas associated with fasterloss of lowland forest.Most contributions focused upon Madagascar, where the age (or ages) of human colonizationhave profound implications for understanding trajectories of anthropogenic ecological changethere, and for the timing of maritime migration and colonizing horizons elsewhere in theIndian Ocean. On the basis of archaeological evidence, human genetics and historical linguistics,habitation of Madagascar began around 1,400 bp with a predominantly Austronesian populationof agriculturalists. In palaeoecological rainforest data extending to 3,000 bp in NW Madagascar,Reinhardt et al., found no evidence of cultural intervention before 1,350 bp (cf. Tofanelli et al.).Domic et al. showed that forest loss and megafaunal extinctions in SW Madagascar, 1,150–550bp were associated with intensified burning that reflected a drying climate and pastoral activities.Hixon et al. dissected the pastoral impact with respect to introduced dogs that competed withendemic predators and were used in cultural hunting.Anderson et al. Editorial: Colonization Remote Indian OceanFIGURE 1 | OUM 14342A, Palaeopropithecus ingens distal humerus (L) adjusted in Adobe Photoshop to highlight areas with bone damage. Perez et al. (2005) “cutmarks” enclosed by white rectangle, but note similar and extensive damage elsewhere that is probably non-cultural (Copyright Anderson and Clark).An alternative scenario envisages early Holocene occupationof Madagascar by African foragers, as proposed by Godfreyet al., although they considered late Holocene megafaunal lossesin the southwest to be drought-associated, and attributed theisland-wide collapse of endemic vertebrates at 1,200–900 bpto the advent of agropastoralism. Possible areas of transientoccupation in SW Madagascar, identified by remote sensing,were considered by Davis and Douglass as up to 3,000 yearsold, although they acknowledged the difficulty of identifyingforaging in a scarcity of direct evidence (see also Reinhardtet al.). Madagascan colonization much earlier than 2,000 bp, wasargued partly from landscape and ecological changes, but basedmost problematically upon radiocarbon-dated megafaunal bonesexhibiting bone damage assumed as anthropogenic.Potential cut-marks on Aepyornis (elephant bird) bonesdated 10,000 bp (Hansford et al., 2018) were on facets almostinaccessible during articulation and it is unlikely that, afterbutchery, the bones were replaced in association as found.Moreover, the clearest marks cut through a surficial stain profileinto cleaner bone beneath, indicating damage that could nothave been perimortem and must have occurred much later.In this case, and others where local people were employed toexcavate, their customary use of sharp implements was the mostplausible explanation. Mitchell (2020) pointed to additional flawsin the ancient butchery hypothesis. In the largest systematic studyof newly-excavated megafaunal bone in Madagascar, Andersonet al. (2018b) found abundant evidence of taphonomic damageby trampling, scavenging and other agencies but an extremelylow incidence of possible butchery and no older than the latefirst millennium AD. Earlier analysis of Madagascan megafaunalsamples (e.g., Perez et al., 2005) had seldom identified the fullextent and variety of bone damage on specimens believed tobe cut-marked (Figure 1). Better identification of bone-damageorigins is an important problem in archaeology and paleontologyand currently under technical review (e.g., Cifuentes-Alcobendasand Domíngez-Rodrigo, 2019).Competing hypotheses of relatively early or late humancolonization of islands, with premises based alternatively uponarchaeological or palaeoenvironmental data, have arisen in theNorth Atlantic, Caribbean, and East Polynesia. Interdisciplinaryresearch in those regions has substantially reduced chronologicalspans in dispute, and contributions included here form part of ananalogous endeavor for the Indian Ocean.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSAA conceived and led this publication. GC, SH, GL, and KSprovided intellectual contributions and reviewed the manuscript.All authors approved it for publication.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank Trevor Worthy and our editorial associate,Sean Hixon.REFERENCESAnderson, A., Camens, A. Clark, G., and Haberle, S. (2018a). “Investigatingpremodern colonization of the Indian Ocean: the remote islands enigma,” inConnecting Continents: Archaeology and History in the Indian Ocean world, ed.K. Seetah (Athens: Ohio University Press), 30–67.Anderson, A., Clark, G., Haberle, S., Higham, T., Nowak-Kemp, M., andPrendergast, A. (2018b). New evidence of megafaunal bone damageindicates late colonization of Madagascar. PLoS ONE 13, e0204368.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0204368Cifuentes-Alcobendas, G., and Domíngez-Rodrigo, M. (2019). Deep learning andtaphonomy: high accuracy in the classification of cut marks made on fleshedFrontiers in Ecology and Evolution | www.frontiersin.org 2 May 2022 | Volume 10 | Article 915306Anderson et al. Editorial: Colonization Remote Indian Oceanand defleshed bones using convolutional neural networks. Sci. Rep. 9, 18933.doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-55439-6Hansford, J., Wright, P. C., Rasoamiaramanana, A., Pérez, V. R., Godfrey, L.R., and Errickson, D. (2018). Early Holocene human presence in Madagascarevidenced by exploitation of avian megafauna. Sci. Adv. 4, eaat6925.doi: 10. 1126/sciadv.aat6925Mitchell, P. (2020). Debating Madagascar: a reply to Hansford et al.’s response. J.Island Coast. Archaeol. 15, 603–608. doi: 10.1080/15564894.2020.1771483Perez, V. R., Godfrey, L. R., Nowak-Kemp, M., Burney, D. A., Ratsimbazafy,J., Vasey, N., et al. (2005). Evidence of early butchery of giant lemurs inMadagascar. J. Human Evol. 49, 722–242. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2005.08.004Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as apotential conflict of interest.Publisher’s Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authorsand do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those ofthe publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated inthis article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed orendorsed by the publisher.Copyright © 2022 Anderson, Clark, Haberle, Larson and Seetah. Thisis an open-access article distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproductionin other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and thecopyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in thisjournal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use,distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with theseterms.Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | www.frontiersin.org 3 May 2022 | Volume 10 | Article 915306

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Editorial: Early human colonization of remote Indian Ocean islands and its ecological impacts

Editorial: Early human colonization of remote Indian Ocean islands and its ecological impacts

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