Reply to Li et al.: Human societies began to play a significant role in global sediment transfer 4,000 years ago

In a recent study (1), we conducted a global synthesis of long-term records of reconstructed sediment accumulation rates (SARs) in lakes and diagnosed that a dominant anthropogenic imprint on soil erosion rates started ∼4,000 y ago. Our approach was based on the assumption that lake SARs are watershed integrators of terrestrial biogeochemical responses to atmospheric (climate) and land surface dynamics spanning several millennia (2⇓–4). Our statistical analysis was based on SAR reconstructions for the last 12,000 y (1), global pollen records spanning the same period to infer past vegetation changes (5), and model-based climate reconstructions from transient Holocene simulation with … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: Jean-Philippe.Jenny{at}inrae.fr. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1