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

Abstract

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...

Evidence of forest management and arboriculture from wood charcoal data: an anthracological case study from two New Caledonia Kanak pre-colonial sites

“…These results stand in sharp contrast to the expectations produced by the classic model of itinerant slash-and-burn horticulture usually associated with the first millennia of human presence in Pacific archaeology narratives (e.g. Haberle et al 2010;Kirch 2000Kirch , 2004Kirch and Hunt 1997;McWethy et al 2010;Sand 2002). However, and rather paradoxically, the results make sense in relation to the large body of ethnological data on traditional practices of arboriculture and on the existence of complex practices of forest ''domestication'' or management throughout Melanesia and southeast Asia (Barrau 1962;Blench 2005;Kennedy 2012;Latinis 2000;Walter and Sam 1999;Yen 1996), but only rarely referring to New Caledonia.…”

“…Haberle et al 2010;Kirch 2000Kirch , 2004Kirch and Hunt 1997;McWethy et al 2010;Sand 2002), the initial use of an extensive slash-and-burn horticultural system with the arrival of people 3,000 years ago would have left strong signatures of deforestation on the vegetation. The subsequent development of cultivation techniques using irrigated terraces and drained mounds during the Kanak pre-colonial period is usually seen as a more sustainable way to exploit natural resources and to reduce the human impact on the environment (Sand 2002;Sand et al 2008).…”

Aboriginal impacts on fire and vegetation on a Tasmanian island

“…Eucalyptus savanna was probably maintained by frequent burning and a relatively moist climate c . 10.0–6.0 kcal bp (Brown, ; Sim, ; Cosgrove, ; Haberle et al ., ; Bowdler, ). The early Holocene drop in charcoal production coincided with temperature maxima, and possibly wetter conditions indicated by peaks in wetland Triglochin , an important food resource that people may have promoted via fire and/or planting (Head, ).…”

Complete chloroplast genomes of Saccharum spontaneum, Saccharum officinarum and Miscanthus floridulus (Panicoideae: Andropogoneae) reveal the plastid view on sugarcane origins

“…In Indonesia, the local lowering of sea levels at about 45,000 yr BP (Karafet et al, 2010) (when Indonesia joined Thailand and Vietnam as a peninsula known as 'Sunda') and due to the global ice age sea level minima at 20,000 yr BP (Clark et al, 2009) allowed new species of plants and animals (including humans) to traverse the island chains (Haberle et al, 2010). These colonizing species may well have included S. robustum.…”

“…In their traditional household cropping systems Saccharum species and Miscanthus were planted together (Miscanthus used for building and hunting and sugarcane used as a carbohydrate source) (Haberle et al, 2010). This allowed numerous opportunities for Saccharum and Miscanthus to hybridize (the resultant hybrid, though not sweet, is more robust that Miscanthus and better for building) leading to the generation of Saccharum maximum (which should more accurately be termed Saccharum £ maximum) on many Polynesian island chains (Grivet, Glaszman, & d'Hont, 2006).…”