Exploring the relationship between Aboriginal population indices and fire in Australia over the last 20,000 years (original) (raw)
Related papers
Pre-European Fire Regimes in Australian Ecosystems
Geography Compass, 2008
We use multiple lines of evidence, including palaeo-environmental, ecological, historical, anthropological and archaeological, to investigate pre-European fire regimes in Australia, with particular focus on the extent to which the use of fire by Aboriginal peoples since their colonisation of the continent at least 45,000 years ago has impacted on the Australian biota. The relative roles of people and climate (including past climate change) as agents driving fire regime are assessed for the major climate-vegetation regions of the continent. Both historical accounts and evidence from current land-use practices in some areas support the argument that Aboriginal peoples used fire as a land management tool. Evidence for pre-European fire regimes suggests that while large areas of savanna woodlands in northern Australia, and dry forests and woodlands in temperate southern Australia, were subjected to increased fire under Aboriginal land management; others were not. Areas where fire regime was controlled primarily by 'natural' climate-fuel relationships probably included those that were difficult to burn because they were too wet (e.g. rainforests), fuel levels were usually too low (e.g. desert and semi-arid rangelands), or resource availability was low and did not support other than transient human occupation (e.g. some shrublands). Scientific studies suggest that many fire-sensitive woody species would decline under more frequent burning, so that the use of a small patch size, frequent fire regime-such as may have existed over large parts of Australia in the pre-European (Aboriginal occupation) period-may have harmful biodiversity conservation outcomes if instituted without careful consideration of individual ecosystem and species requirements.
2021
Indigenous land use and climate have shaped fire regimes in southeast Australia during the Holocene, although their relative influence remains unclear. The archaeologically attested mid-Holocene decline in land-use intensity on the Furneaux Group islands (FGI) relative to mainland Tasmanian and SE Australia presents a natural experiment to identify the roles of climate and anthropogenic land use. We reconstruct two key facets of regional fire regimes, biomass (vegetation) burned (BB) and recurrence rate of fire episodes (RRFE), by using total charcoal influx and charcoal peaks in palaeoecological records, respectively. Our results suggest climate-driven biomass accumulation and dryness-controlled BB across southeast Australia during the Holocene. Insights from the FGI suggest people elevated the recurrence rate of fire episodes through frequent cultural burning during the early Holocene and reduction in recurrent Indigenous cultural burning during the mid–late Holocene led to increa...
The fire, human and climate nexus in the Sydney Basin, eastern Australia
The Holocene, 2007
It is widely believed that Australian Aborigines utilized fire to manage many landscapes; however, to what extent this use of fire impacted on Australia's ecosystems remains uncertain. The late Pleistocene/ Holocene fire history from three sites within the Sydney Basin (Gooches Swamp, Lake Baraba and Kings Waterhole) were compared with archaeological and palaeoclimatic data. The Gooches Swamp record appeared to be most influenced by climate and there was an abrupt increase in fire activity from the mid Holocene perhaps associated with the onset of modern El Niño-dominated conditions. The Kings Waterhole site also displayed an abrupt increase at this time, however there was a marked decrease in charcoal from ~3 ka. Similarly Lake Baraba displayed low levels of charcoal in the late Holocene. At both Kings Waterhole and Lake Baraba archaeological evidence suggests intensified human activity in the late Holocene during this period of lower and less variable charcoal. It is hence pos...
Austral Ecology, 2005
Yallalie is a probable meteor impact crater and in the Upper Pliocene contained a substantial lake. Two Mid-Pliocene finely laminated sediment records from Palaeolake Yallalie, from about 3 million years ago, provide evidence of fire and fire frequency in the sclerophyll woodland and heaths of southwestern Australia in the absence of humans. Fine charcoal was observed in all samples examined, and was deposited at a rate of about 0.3-0.8 cm 2 cm-2 year-1 in Palaeolake Yallalie. This evidence suggests the occurrence of annual fires occurring every year in the slightly warmer and wetter climate compared with today. The near coastal western location and the prevailing westerly winds probably carry charcoal from the near region or lake catchment scale. The data indicate that local fires occurred at a variety of time intervals between 3 and 13 years, with a typical average of 6-10 years. The results are comparable with those of Atahan et al. (2004) for the same site but from a period of about 200 000 years later in the Mid-Pliocene. Thus, the records which differ in age by some hundreds of thousands of years have all recorded fire frequencies that are longer than for the historical period and this may have important implications for the long-term survival of the integrity of the high biodiversity plant communities of the region.
2006
The local fire history of a coastal swamp catchment in New South Wales was reconstructed using two proxy records of fire: sedimentary macroscopic charcoal and fire-scar analyses of Xanthorrhoea johnsonii. The charcoal analysis provided a record of fire activity spanning the last 2800 years, while the Xanthorrhoea record covered the last approx. 300 years. The ability of each method to accurately record fire events was verified by cross referencing against the recent (post 1968) historic fire record. Fire history was then extrapolated beyond the historic record, to reveal an unprecedented level of fire activity in the last 35 years, which coincides with increased human activity in the area. In the prehistoric period charcoal and fire scars are comparatively rare, which is most parsimoniously ascribed to little fire activity, but perhaps represents skilful fire manipulation, as is often attributed to Aboriginal people. The comparatively minor fluctuations in macroscopic charcoal during the prehistoric period were approximately coeval with previous evidence of late Holocene environmental change in south-eastern Australia, suggesting that fire frequency at the site responded to climatic variability. The longer temporal perspective of this palaeoenvironmental approach provides information for the contemporary management of fire in this conservation reserve.
Indigenous impacts on north Australian savanna fire regimes over the Holocene
Scientific Reports, 2021
Fire is an essential component of tropical savannas, driving key ecological feedbacks and functions. Indigenous manipulation of fire has been practiced for tens of millennia in Australian savannas, and there is a renewed interest in understanding the effects of anthropogenic burning on savanna systems. However, separating the impacts of natural and human fire regimes on millennial timescales remains difficult. Here we show using palynological and isotope geochemical proxy records from a rare permanent water body in Northern Australia that vegetation, climate, and fire dynamics were intimately linked over the early to mid-Holocene. As the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) intensified during the late Holocene, a decoupling occurred between fire intensity and frequency, landscape vegetation, and the source of vegetation burnt. We infer from this decoupling, that indigenous fire management began or intensified at around 3 cal kyr BP, possibly as a response to ENSO related climate vari...
Ancient Australia: A Land Tamed by People and Fire
The International Journal of History, 2023
This article explores the ancient aboriginal practice of using fire to condition ecosystems, in order to produce food production and procurement. Primarily concerned is the use of fire to create ash, which acted as fertiliser, along with rainwater, in order to bring consistency and change to vegetation, and therefore the animals that fed upon them, and the ancient aboriginals that fed upon vegetation and animals through foraging and hunting. Also considered are typed of plants burned, for the purpose of producing specific types of ash as specific types of fertiliser, for specific types of plant growth. Considered throughout this article is the historical scenario that ancient aboriginals used these methods in order to deliberately manage the land, its vegetation, the animals that fed upon them, and the peoples that fed upon them.
Using the Paleorecord to Evaluate Climate and Fire Interactions in Australia
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2007
Burning has been a near-continuous feature of the Australian environment but has become progressively more important since the mid-Tertiary, associated with the development of the characteristic sclerophyll vegetation. In the Quaternary, the extent of burning has varied temporally and regionally with glacial-interglacial cyclicity. Burning during glacial periods was reduced in drier areas, presumably because of a critical reduction in fuel availability, but increased in relatively wetter areas where fuel levels were high. On both glacial and Holocene timescales, peaks in charcoal often accompany transitions between fire-insensitive vegetation types, suggesting that burning is facilitated during periods of climate change and environmental instability. This suggestion has been supported by the demonstration of close relationships between fire and El Niño activity. Burning has also increased progressively over the past few hundred thousand years with major accelerations around the time of first human settlement of the continent and with the arrival of Europeans. To provide a firmer base for application of paleofire records to environmental management, there is an urgent need for a spatially more-substantial coverage of high-resolution fire records with good chronological control.
Fire and vegetation change during the Early Pleistocene in southeastern Australia
Journal of Quaternary Science, 2012
Early Pleistocene vegetation in upland southeastern Australia included diverse rainforests and sclerophyll forests, which alternated on precessional timescales. The nature and timing of transitions between these biomes, and the role of fire in maintaining or driving transitions between them, are uncertain. Here we present a highresolution pollen record from Stony Creek Basin, a small Early Pleistocene palaeolake in southeastern Australia. The pollen record documents a pattern of vegetation change, over ca. 10 ka at ca. 1590-1600 ka, between sclerophyll forests, dominated by Eucalyptus, Callitris (Cupressaceae) or Casuarinaceae, and rainforests dominated by either angiosperms or conifers of the family Podocarpaceae. Transitions between these biomes typically occurred within ca. 1-2 ka. The associated charcoal record suggests that greatest biomass combustion occurred when local vegetation was dominated by Eucalyptus, and the least biomass combustion occurred when local vegetation was dominated by Podocarpaceae. However, local fires burnt in both sclerophyll and angiosperm-dominated rainforest vegetation, at least once every several centuries. Fire was very rare (less than about one fire per millennium) only when the local vegetation was rainforest dominated by Podocarpaceae. This suggests that fire was an irregular presence in both sclerophyll-and angiosperm-dominated rainforest biomes during the late Neogene, though was largely absent in Podocarpaceae-dominated rainforests.