Aboriginal Burning Regimes and Hunting Strategies in Australia’s Western Desert

Bird, Douglas W.; Bird, Rebecca Bliege; Parker, Christopher H.

doi:10.1007/s10745-005-5155-0

Cited by 139 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Early huntergatherers introduced anthropogenic fire regimes across the continents, both unintentionally and with the intention to create and maintain open landscapes and early successional ecosystems to enhance their success in hunting and foraging (Cronon 1983, Grayson 2001, Bird et al 2005, Bowman et al 2011, Rowley-Conwy and Layton 2011, Smith 2011, Ellis et al 2013b). More complex and sedentary hunter-gatherer societies developed larger populations, a degree of social inequality and hierarchy (Ames 2007, Shennan 2011b, and some developed ceramic technologies, the first artificial minerals produced by humans (Craig et al 2013).…”

Section: Patterns Of Long-term Change In Sociocultural Niche Construcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere

Ellis

2015

Ecological Monographs

486

510

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Abstract. Humans, unlike any other multicellular species in Earth's history, have emerged as a global force that is transforming the ecology of an entire planet. It is no longer possible to understand, predict, or successfully manage ecological pattern, process, or change without understanding why and how humans reshape these over the long term. Here, a general causal theory is presented to explain why human societies gained the capacity to globally alter the patterns, processes, and dynamics of ecology and how these anthropogenic alterations unfold over time and space as societies themselves change over human generational time. Building on existing theories of ecosystem engineering, niche construction, inclusive inheritance, cultural evolution, ultrasociality, and social change, this theory of anthroecological change holds that sociocultural evolution of subsistence regimes based on ecosystem engineering, social specialization, and non-kin exchange, or ''sociocultural niche construction,'' is the main cause of both the long-term upscaling of human societies and their unprecedented transformation of the biosphere. Human sociocultural niche construction can explain, where classic ecological theory cannot, the sustained transformative effects of human societies on biogeography, ecological succession, ecosystem processes, and the ecological patterns and processes of landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere. Anthroecology theory generates empirically testable hypotheses on the forms and trajectories of long-term anthropogenic ecological change that have significant theoretical and practical implications across the subdisciplines of ecology and conservation. Though still at an early stage of development, anthroecology theory aligns with and integrates established theoretical frameworks including social-ecological systems, social metabolism, countryside biogeography, novel ecosystems, and anthromes. The ''fluxes of nature'' are fast becoming ''cultures of nature.'' To investigate, understand, and address the ultimate causes of anthropogenic ecological change, not just the consequences, human sociocultural processes must become as much a part of ecological theory and practice as biological and geophysical processes are now. Strategies for achieving this goal and for advancing ecological science and conservation in an increasingly anthropogenic biosphere are presented.

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Section: Patterns Of Long-term Change In Sociocultural Niche Construcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere

Ellis

2015

Ecological Monographs

486

510

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“…Thereby, mature spinifex reduces availability of water and nutrients (and possibly light) for the germinants. [34,35]. Allelopathic effects may also play a role but have not been studied systematically in spinifex grasslands.…”

Section: Diversity Of Regenerating Species Is Unaffected By Treatmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harvesting as an Alternative to Burning for Managing Spinifex Grasslands in Australia

Gamage

Memmott

Firn

et al. 2014

Advances in Ecology

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Sustainable harvesting of grasslands can buffer large scale wildfires and the harvested biomass can be used for various products. Spinifex (Triodia spp.) grasslands cover ≈30% of the Australian continent and form the dominant vegetation in the driest regions. Harvesting near settlements is being considered as a means to reduce the occurrence and intensity of wildfires and to source biomaterials for sustainable desert living. However, it is unknown if harvesting spinifex grasslands can be done sustainably without loss of biodiversity and ecosystem function. We examined the trajectory of plant regeneration of burned and harvested spinifex grassland, floristic diversity, nutrient concentrations in soil and plants, and seed germination in controlled ex situ conditions. After two to three years of burning or harvesting in dry or wet seasons, species richness, diversity, and concentrations of most nutrients in soil and leaves of regenerating spinifex plants were overall similar in burned and harvested plots. Germination tests showed that 20% of species require fire-related cues to trigger germination, indicating that fire is essential for the regeneration of some species. Further experimentation should evaluate these findings and explore if harvesting and intervention, such as sowing of fire-cued seeds, allow sustainable, localised harvesting of spinifex grasslands.

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“…Turning again to foragers, a recent ethnographic study by Bliege Bird et al ( [82]; see also [83]) provides detailed insights into the kind of landscape modifications that prehistoric hunter-gatherers may also have practised, and their adaptive outcomes. They show that episodic and systematic landscape burning by Australian Aboriginals increases hunting success measured in caloric yield per unit land.…”

Section: Archaeological Signatures Of Human Niche Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptation and niche construction in human prehistory: a case study from the southern Scandinavian Late Glacial

Riede

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The niche construction model postulates that human bio-social evolution is composed of three inheritance domains, genetic, cultural and ecological, linked by feedback selection. This paper argues that many kinds of archaeological data can serve as proxies for human niche construction processes, and presents a method for investigating specific niche construction hypotheses. To illustrate this method, the repeated emergence of specialized reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) hunting/herding economies during the Late Palaeolithic (ca 14.7-11.5 kyr BP) in southern Scandinavia is analysed from a niche construction/triple-inheritance perspective. This economic relationship resulted in the eventual domestication of Rangifer. The hypothesis of whether domestication was achieved as early as the Late Palaeolithic, and whether this required the use of domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) as hunting, herding or transport aids, is tested via a comparative analysis using material culture-based phylogenies and ecological datasets in relation to demographic/genetic proxies. Only weak evidence for sustained niche construction behaviours by prehistoric hunter-gatherer in southern Scandinavia is found, but this study nonetheless provides interesting insights into the likely processes of dog and reindeer domestication, and into processes of adaptation in Late Glacial foragers.

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Aboriginal Burning Regimes and Hunting Strategies in Australia’s Western Desert

Cited by 139 publications

References 39 publications

Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere

Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere

Harvesting as an Alternative to Burning for Managing Spinifex Grasslands in Australia

Adaptation and niche construction in human prehistory: a case study from the southern Scandinavian Late Glacial

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