Hydrogeology of Palm Valley, central Australia; a Pleistocene flora refuge?

Wischusen, John D. H.; Fifield, L.K.; Cresswell, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2004.01.007

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(58 reference statements)

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“…MacDonnell, Petermann, Mann, Musgrave and Everard ranges), the Pilbara‐Hamersley Ranges, Gawler‐Flinders‐Mount Lofty Ranges, and the Selwyn Range. All have gorges and permanent waterholes, and today act as refuges for groups that were presumably more widespread in the Miocene such as palms (Wischusen et al . 2004) and snails.…”

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confidence: 99%

Birth of a biome: insights into the assembly and maintenance of the Australian arid zone biota

Byrne¹,

et al. 2008

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The integration of phylogenetics, phylogeography and palaeoenvironmental studies is providing major insights into the historical forces that have shaped the Earth's biomes. Yet our present view is biased towards arctic and temperate/tropical forest regions, with very little focus on the extensive arid regions of the planet. The Australian arid zone is one of the largest desert landform systems in the world, with a unique, diverse and relatively well-studied biota. With foci on palaeoenvironmental and molecular data, we here review what is known about the assembly and maintenance of this biome in the context of its physical history, and in comparison with other mesic biomes. Aridification of Australia began in the Mid-Miocene, around 15 million years, but fully arid landforms in central Australia appeared much later, around 1-4 million years. Dated molecular phylogenies of diverse taxa show the deepest divergences of arid-adapted taxa from the Mid-Miocene, consistent with the onset of desiccation. There is evidence of arid-adapted taxa evolving from mesicadapted ancestors, and also of speciation within the arid zone. There is no evidence for an increase in speciation rate during the Pleistocene, and most arid-zone species lineages date to the Pliocene or earlier. The last 0.8 million years have seen major fluctuations of the arid zone, with large areas covered by mobile sand dunes during glacial maxima. Some large, vagile taxa show patterns of recent expansion and migration throughout the arid zone, in parallel with the ice sheet-imposed range shifts in Northern Hemisphere taxa. Yet other taxa show high lineage diversity and strong phylogeographical structure, indicating persistence in multiple localised refugia over several glacial maxima. Similar to the Northern Hemisphere, Pleistocene range shifts have produced suture zones, creating the opportunity for diversification and speciation through hybridisation, polyploidy and parthenogenesis. This review highlights the opportunities that development of arid conditions provides for rapid and diverse evolutionary radiations, and re-enforces the emerging view that Pleistocene environmental change can have diverse impacts on genetic structure and diversity in different biomes. There is a clear need for more detailed and targeted phylogeographical studies of Australia's arid biota and we suggest a framework and a set of a priori hypotheses by which to proceed.

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Birth of a biome: insights into the assembly and maintenance of the Australian arid zone biota

Byrne¹,

et al. 2008

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“…Although it is possible that springs in local areas will activate or deactivate over time and that billabongs and other small water sources in bedrock (gnammas, rockholes) will form and disappear over time, the areas where such features have been located in the past can be assumed to be relatively constant, because they require particular lithologies, hydrogeological environments, and/or geomorphic settings. Hence their modern distribution is likely broadly comparable to their distribution in the past, with many such locations being important refugia as a result of their longterm stability (56)(57)(58). In the context of early human dispersal, small isolated water points (identified from topographic sheets) are likely to have been less significant than areas connected during times of inundation (identified by the WOfS data), because of the risk associated with striking out into an unknown area across an intervening landscape with no known water points.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

Bird

O’Grady

Ulm

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The Pleistocene global dispersal of modern humans required the transit of arid and semiarid regions where the distribution of potable water provided a primary constraint on dispersal pathways. Here, we provide a spatially explicit continental-scale assessment of the opportunities for Pleistocene human occupation of Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth. We establish the location and connectedness of persistent water in the landscape using the Australian Water Observations from Space dataset combined with the distribution of small permanent water bodies (springs, gnammas, native wells, waterholes, and rockholes). Results demonstrate a high degree of directed landscape connectivity during wet periods and a high density of permanent water points widely but unevenly distributed across the continental interior. A connected network representing the least-cost distance between water bodies and graded according to terrain cost shows that 84% of archaeological sites >30,000 y old are within 20 km of modern permanent water. We further show that multiple, well-watered routes into the semiarid and arid continental interior were available throughout the period of early human occupation. Depletion of high-ranked resources over time in these paleohydrological corridors potentially drove a wave of dispersal farther along well-watered routes to patches with higher foraging returns.Sahul | Pleistocene colonization | radiocarbon | human dispersal | paleohydrological corridor

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“…Although the island’s Pleistocene hydrological network is not well understood, the distribution of freshwater sources in the past is likely broadly comparable with their modern distribution. Permanent water points, such as rivers and springs, require particular lithologies, hydrogeological environments and geomorphic settings [ 56 , 57 ]. Thus, while it is possible that smaller water sources (e.g.…”

Section: Discussion: Modelling the Pleistocene Exploitation Of Cyprusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the Pleistocene colonisation of Eastern Mediterranean islandscapes

et al. 2021

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Predictive models have become an integral part of archaeological research, particularly in the discovery of new archaeological sites. In this paper, we apply predictive modeling to map high potential Pleistocene archaeological locales on the island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean. The model delineates landscape characteristics that denote areas with high potential to unearth Pleistocene archaeology while at the same time highlighting localities that should be excluded. The predictive model was employed in surface surveys to systematically access high probability locales on Cyprus. A number of newly identified localities suggests that the true density of mobile hunter-gatherer sites on Cyprus is seriously underestimated in current narratives. By adding new data to this modest corpus of early insular sites, we are able to contribute to debates regarding island colonisation and the role of coastal environments in human dispersals to new territories.

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Hydrogeology of Palm Valley, central Australia; a Pleistocene flora refuge?

Cited by 17 publications

References 44 publications

Birth of a biome: insights into the assembly and maintenance of the Australian arid zone biota

Birth of a biome: insights into the assembly and maintenance of the Australian arid zone biota

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

Modelling the Pleistocene colonisation of Eastern Mediterranean islandscapes

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