Implications of a 14 200 year contiguous fire record for understanding human—climate relationships at Goochs Swamp, New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

This paper interprets macroscopic charcoal (>250 μm), humification and loss-on-ignition over the last ~14200 cal. BP from Goochs Swamp, located to the west of Sydney in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This study aimed to investigate relationships between humans, climate and fire through time, primarily by comparison of these palaeoenvironmental indices with archaeological evidence from the region. Climatic forcing can explain all periods of change in the history of fire at Goochs Swamp: fire activity was variable during the Lateglacial—Holocene transition, low during the relatively stable climate of the early Holocene, and high but variable after the onset of modern El Niño from the mid Holocene. Although the dominant control on fire in this environment during the Holocene appears to be climate, fluctuations in the late Holocene may reflect anthropogenic fire or human responses to climate change. The archaeological record of the Blue Mountains and other parts of the Sydney Basin illustrates that Aboriginal people altered subsistence, resource and land-use patterns in the late Holocene. We propose that these cultural measures were adopted to overcome new risks as the frequency of ENSO events increased, and the natural fire regime and resource reliability changed. These strategies perhaps included a more systematic use of fire. The most parsimonious interpretation of the evidence for changes in fire activity at Goochs Swamp in the light of nearby archaeological evidence is that Aboriginal people used fire within a changing climatic framework.

Palaeoecology of the South Wellesley Archipelago. A history of human occupation and environmental change

“…sampling of macrocharcoal provides a record of local fire regimes (Long et al, 1998;Whitlock and Millspaugh, 1996), allowing the relationships between humans, climate and fire during the Holocene to be investigated (Black et al, 2008). This project compares microscopic and macroscopic charcoal concentrations with palynological results to accurately quantify past fire regimes of tropical sclerophyll landscapes in northern Australia.…”

Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: Practice, Potential and Prospects

“…O'Connell and Allen 2007). Regional chronologies for Pleistocene or Holocene burning and vegetation change have been established for the Lake Condah region of southwestern Victoria (Builth et al 2008), Sydney Basin (Black et al 2008), Atherton Tablelands of northeastern Queensland (Kershaw et al 2007), Torres Strait (Rowe 2006a), and elsewhere. Additionally, high-resolution records have been used to understand climatic and anthropogenic drivers of environmental change over the last 1000 years (Haberle et al 2006).…”

Linking fire and climate: interactions with land use, vegetation, and soil

“…In the tropics and subtropics fire is extensively used in various land use practices, such as agricultural management, nutrient cycling, hunting, and fishing ( Figure 1) [2,3, 16,34]. Both past and current literature show that humans influence fire regimes by altering the number, location, and timing of ignitions, or by hindering the spread of fires hence altering the spatial and temporal patterns of fire in relation to climate [12,32,28].…”

“…Box 2 Examples of change in human use of fire in response to climate Australia: Changes in Aboriginal land use patterns resulting in more frequent fires in late Holocene were linked to increased climate variability [16].…”

“…Attempts are made to link findings from the last few years with earlier work where necessary, to show the rapidly increasing body of knowledge on fires. The studies reviewed relied on combinations of methods including social science instruments [1 ] field-based ecological surveys [6,7], remote sensing [8,9 ], archeological and historical evidence [10 ,11,12], paleo-environmental indices and regional climate proxies [13][14][15][16]17 ]. I attempt to provide an overview of current insights on factors that drive fire and on the fire-vegetation-soil relationship but I do not cover the role of fire in greenhouse gas emissions nor do I aim to provide a comprehensive description of fire as an earth system process in particular geographical regions.…”