“One of the penalties of an ecological education,” the conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote, “is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.” This is true for the students of prehistory as much as ecologists. Nature has never been in a static balance – change is the overwhelming theme – and the scars of ancient disruptions can still be perceived by those who know what to look for.

Species are disappearing at a rapid rate. The earth’s sixth mass extinction may not be here just yet, but the catastrophe is getting closer every day. Viewed from some future perspective through the lens of Deep Time, though, such a crisis might seem to