Pleistocene Settlement of Deserts from an Australian Perspective

Hiscock, Peter; Wallis, Lynley A.

doi:10.1002/9780470774632.ch3

Cited by 43 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Although regionally specific palaeoclimatic records are not available for the inland Kimberley, the LGM generally is characterised as a time of increased aridity, decreased temperatures, greater windiness and reduced effective precipitation Hesse and McTainsh 1999;Hiscock and Wallis 2005). It is generally accepted that foraging and social strategies would have required significant modification as major environmental shifts took place and water sources dried up (Hiscock and Wallis 2005;O'Connor and Veth 2006).…”

Section: 000 Bp To 20000 Bpmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is generally accepted that foraging and social strategies would have required significant modification as major environmental shifts took place and water sources dried up (Hiscock and Wallis 2005;O'Connor and Veth 2006). However, precisely when environmental deterioration set in is more difficult to determine.…”

Section: 000 Bp To 20000 Bpmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Archaeological sequences with this level of preservation and chronological resolution are rare anywhere in Australia, and particularly so in northern Australia, where the monsoon tropical environment usually rapidly destroys organic materials. Well-resolved late PleistoceneHolocene terrestrial records for palaeovegetation change have also proved elusive, as lakes and other natural deposits preserving continuous pollen records are few in northwest Australia (Hiscock and Wallis 2005). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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terra australis 32Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2009. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Among saltbush greyer than seaweed we boardwalk the yeasting waves of the old golden-perch pond. List of volumes in Terra AustralisRabbit dung dots a lake bottom dry since their coming -only once, last century, after seven inches of rain a farmer had to rescue his sheep by boat.The roo bounces down-slope, a brown branch crackling.The professor's eye, noting the local runoff and what the westerlies do, observes seas that rush in and out of a continent's middle, salt lakes spreading and emptying, hills pimpling up and down with cartoon-like speed, or gullying themselves into extinction, rainforests and deserts zipping back and forth like Tom and Jerry. A human mouse plague swiftly swarms, perhaps soon gone.Impermanent planet. Impermanent surface. All under air and water. The lunette is a wave, a dumper of sand, a collapsing tower in the mad rabbit years when its top blew off and old bones winked through, with a vault's worth of fine stone cores.Once so simply mislaid in sand, now so obligingly sluiced out to the un-subincised world that smiles at stone knives. terra australis 32Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes v You might as well offer your table knife to a carpenter.Cane grass and the Dreamtime's stone fight the eroding rivulets together. In today's rare downpour each lost core, or blunted scraper crowns some tiny eroding hillock, plops its anchor in the dissolving silts.The bettong whose skin took off the stone tool's edge has vanished -sacrifice to future fertility.Through the softening soil Homo sapiens's skeleton bumps up like a carp's back.Waits for the wind to shave it off in pieces.A D-section and a ti...

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Section: 000 Bp To 20000 Bpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: 000 Bp To 20000 Bpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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“…(9), and Devil's Lair in the southwest was occupied by 43-48 ka (1) or by ∼50 ka (40). There was a lag in occupation of the arid bedrock core of the continent, which was not occupied until 36.5-42.5 ka (23). These data imply a maximum dispersal interval of ∼5,000-10,000 y, during which most of the readily habitable parts of the continent were occupied.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…15) as variably dependent on a matrix of biogeographic (16), ecological/climatic (17), and sociological/technological (18,19) facilitators of-or barriers to-dispersal from an initial point of entry in the north (20). The vast interior of the continent is now viewed as a mosaic of potential oases, corridors, and barriers, with the viability of a specific region for occupation or transit also depending on the trajectories of environmental change (21)(22)(23)(24).…”

mentioning

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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A Matter of Balance: An overview of Pleistocene occupation history and the impact of the Last Glacial Phase in East Timor and the Aru Islands, eastern Indonesia

O’Connor

Aplin

2007

Archaeology in Oceania

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This paper explores the subsistence records from cave sites with Pleistocene‐aged deposits in East Timor and the Aru Islands during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and discusses these records within the context of the limited archaeological evidence for LGM occupation from elsewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago. Although Timor and the Aru Islands are at similar latitudes, the onset of aridity had markedly different impacts on the settlement and subsistence choices available to hunter‐gatherers in these two regions. We suggest that the different occupation trajectories seen in Timor and Aru during the LGM are related, at least in part, to biogeographic contrasts across the Indonesian Archipelago.

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Pleistocene Settlement of Deserts from an Australian Perspective

Cited by 43 publications

References 88 publications

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

A Matter of Balance: An overview of Pleistocene occupation history and the impact of the Last Glacial Phase in East Timor and the Aru Islands, eastern Indonesia

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