Anastasia Poliakovahttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9824-2603,^1,2,* Antony G. Brownhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1990-4654,^1,** Inger G. Alsoshttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8610-1085<sup>1,***

1</sup>The Arctic University Museum of Norway, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
²Institute for Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

^*Anastasia Poliakova is palaeoecologist and data analyst. She received her PhD from the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, and has 15 years of research experience participating in international research projects focused on modern and past multiproxy vegetation studies; the history of Arctic, European, subtropical and tropical vegetation; land use; and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. In this project she was focused on the human-induced changes in the landscapes, environments, and vegetation of the high Arctic, combining methods of classical vegetation science and palaeoecology with ancient DNA sediment studies, diverse methods of data analysis and bioinformatics. She designed and performed this study.
^**Antony G. Brown is an experienced palaeoecologist with over 40 years of practice who has worked in many environments from the tropics to the Arctic. A particular area of his research related to this paper has been the transport and taphonomy of pollen. His broad interests are palynology, human–environment interaction and, most recently, the applications of sedaDNA to archaeology. He has published over 200 academic papers and several books and is a fellow of both the Geological Society of London and the Society of Antiquaries.
^***Inger G. Alsos has 30 years' experience on the ecology of Artic plants. She is the leader of the Aurora Centre of Arctic Ecosystems Genomics (ArcEcoGen), UiT – Arctic University of Norway. Her research focuses on the past and likely future distribution of Arctic and subarctic vascular plants. She has combined genetic data (modern and ancient DNA), species distribution modelling, and fossil data to explore dispersal routes, colonisation frequencies, and long-term effects of climate change on northern ecosystems. She is currently working on ancient DNA in lake sediments from Iceland, Svalbard, Northern Fennoscandia, Northern Russia, Greenland, and the Alps, as well as a full-genome reference library for the Norwegian and polar flora (PhyloNorway).