The world has been significantly transformed by human actions at least throughout the course of the Holocene with implications for ecological functioning, climate regulation, etc. Central to furthering understanding of the timing, extent and impact of these transformations is quantification of vegetation cover and land-use at local, regional and continental scales, and at centennial to millennial timescales. Recent accelerations in the intensity of human land use have been implicated for changes in biodiversity, however, relationships between land use change and diversity are complex and include important historical legacies. This session explores recent developments in, and applications of, the quantification of land-cover and land-use from palaeobotanical and palynological data in globally diverse landscapes. We welcome all contributions on methodological advances, and applications to historic and prehistoric long-term dynamics and drivers of land-use, anthropogenic land-cover and land-system change, as well as shifts in biodiversity patterns. These contributions may include pollen and other palaeobotanical approaches to land-use and land-cover change, archaeological and historical records and related palaeoecological data (e.g. palaeoentomological data), as well as modelling studies on anthropogenic land-cover change (ALCC) and climate-land use interactions.

This session contributes to the PAGES LandCover6k working group (http://pastglobalchanges.org/landcover6k). The primary goal of LandCover6k is to use global empirical data on past land-use and anthropogenic land-cover change to evaluate and improve Anthropogenic Land-Cover Change scenarios for earth system modellers (e.g. the World Climate Research Programme CMIP and PMIP initiatives). However, submissions do not need to be explicitly linked to this working group and we welcome abstracts with wider reaching themes spanning environmental responses to human activities, such as biodiversity loss and changes in ecosystem functioning.