This NAISS project proposal is for storage of data from two projects funded by the KAW under the ressearch theme of 'Sedimentary paleogenomics': "Reconstructing biotic responses to multiple periods of abrupt climate warming using deep-time ancient DNA from marine and terrestrial sediments" Goal and Summary: To investigate the consequences of climate changes over multiple glacial-interglacial transitions on the biodiversity of marine and terrestrial Arctic biomes. I will apply cutting-edge ancient DNA techniques to sediments from North America and the Arctic Ocean basin to test the magnitude of ecological changes across multiple glacial-interglacial transitions over the past 450,000 years. The study will test whether ecological changes across glacial-interglacial transitions are comparable and can therefore serve as a model for predicting changes associated with ongoing climate warming. "First Contact - a multidisciplinary assessment of the impact of human arrival on faunal biodiversity" We here propose a groundbreaking new research programme that aims to investigate one of the great unresolved questions regarding human activity and palaeoecology: how did the expansion of modern humans during the last 70 thousand years affect local populations of wild animals? To examine this, we will use an interdisciplinary approach integrating archaeological, geological and palaeogenomic methods. More specifically, we will generate large-scale multi-species population genomic and sedimentary DNA datasets from several localities across the Northern Hemisphere and combine these with archaeological data and chronometric dating to: (1) Establish a refined chronology of regional human arrival across the Northern Hemisphere. (2) Test the hypothesis that wildlife demography was affected by human arrival and subsequent demographic expansions. (3) Explore the timing, rate, and faunal biodiversity consequences of human-induced landscape modifications. (4) Investigate how the arrival of domesticated animals affected resident wildlife populations. (5) Assess the extent of pathogen transmission from humans and domestics into wildlife populations.