Alpine Glacier Reveals Ecosystem Impacts of Europe's Prosperity and Peril Over the Last Millennium

Information about past ecosystem dynamics and human activities is stored in the ice of Colle Gnifetti glacier Swiss Alps. Adverse climatic intervals incurred crop failures famines triggered reestablishment forest vegetation but also societal resilience through innovation. Historical documents lake sediments record these changes at local—regional scales often struggle to comprehensively document continental-scale impacts on ecosystems. Here, we provide unique multiproxy evidence broad-scale ecosystem, land use, climate over millennium from a microfossil oxygen isotope record. Microfossil data indicate that before 1750 CE forests fallow rapidly replaced cultivation during historically documented crises caused by shifts epidemics. Subsequently, with technology introduction more resilient crops, European societies adapted Little Ice Age cold period, resource overexploitation industrialization led new regional global-scale environmental challenges.