Coaxing History to Conduct Experiments

Disturbance is the inverse of ecological stability. Late-Pleistocene disturbance, whether climatic or cultural, is a set of experiments on stability of ecosystems. Pollen methodology is quantitatively inadequate, but Goulden's approach to specific diversity has promise. New results (Damon, Stuiver) in the biogeochemistry of carbon prove major late-Pleistocene variations in the C14 content of the biosphere.