Archaeological evidence for population change in the middle to late Holocene in southeastern Australia

Ross, Anne

doi:10.1002/j.1834-4453.1985.tb00114.x

Cited by 57 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…The social import of changes in stone artefacts throughout the Bondaian has been extensively debated (e. ;Johnson 1979;Lourandos 1985;Ross 1985;M.A. Smith 1982;Williams 1985).…”

Section: Archaeological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of researchers have explored the archaeological evidence for Holocene demographic and technological changes in a range of different environments (e.g. Attenbrow 2004, Barker 2004, Beaton 1985, Boot 1996, David et al 2006, Lampert and Hughes 1974, Lourandos 1985, Ross 1985, M.A. Smith 1982, Thorley 1999Ulm 2006;Veth 2006;Williams 1985).…”

Section: Diachronic Variation In the Art Of The Sydney Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social pressure and increased interaction is likely to be a consequence of increased population pressure. Cultural phases with the greatest amounts of archaeological evidence (Attenbrow 2004, Lourandos 1985, Ross 1985 are likely to be correlated with phases of peak art production providing in situ evidence for symbolic behaviour (Conkey 1978(Conkey , 1980Gamble 1982;Morwood 1987). During such cultural phases there would be increased levels of territoriality, with amplified inter-group competition and imposed 'political' control necessitating group action and re-action.…”

Section: Diachronic Variation In the Art Of The Sydney Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

McDonald¹

2008

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Terra 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. List of volumes in Terra AustralisVolume 1: Burrill Lake and Currarong: Coastal Sites in Southern New South Wales. R.J. Lampert (1971) Volume 2: Ol Tumbuna: Archaeological Excavations in the Eastern Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. J.P. White (1972) Volume 3 vi Dreamtime Superhighway: an analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric information exchange FOREWORD I remember the visit with clarity: it was 1991 and my first trip to Australia. One day was spent at Sydney's West Head with the young and enthusiastic Jo McDonald, where we toured some of the rock engraving sites and the painted Great Mackerel rock shelter. I can still see the large flat curving rocks at West Head on which animals had been engraved -fish, kangaroos, a goanna. And, as is so often the case when I visit rock art sites, my imagination gets going as to the 'how's' and 'why's'. I try to run some sort of a show in my head as to the people who produced these, viewed these, and what kinds of significations the images and their makings played in the lives of past peoples. At the time of this visit, Jo McDonald was well into her 1994 dissertationthe work upon which this monograph is based. Already, in that PhD dissertation, she was able to touch on some of the things that my imagination was searching for. Thus, it is with great pleasure and even more enthusiasm that I am writing this Foreword to a revised and thoroughly up-dated monograph based on that initial dissertation research.At the time of the 1994 dissertation, the anthropological and archaeological study of 'rock art' was really emerging into new trends and new prominence. Surely Australia was one of the leaders in the training of students and in the research that contextualized the images and 'art', thanks to such scholars as Andrée Rosenfeld, Robert Layton, and John Clegg among others. By this time, the work of David Lewis-Williams and colleagues in southern Africa had set off numerous studies world-wide into the relationship between the production of rock art images and altered states of consciousness and the role of shamans in image-making practices. But this was not the direction or focus of rock art studies in Australia, and McDonald's original work would not be tempted either. Rather, she carried out an extensive project of contextualizing the rock art in question, and in two different ways. First, she wanted to give us an understanding of the rock art in its archaeological contexts-sheltered or open, dates and chronologies, site types and, in general, what the archaeology c...

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“…The social import of changes in stone artefacts throughout the Bondaian has been extensively debated (e. ;Johnson 1979;Lourandos 1985;Ross 1985;M.A. Smith 1982;Williams 1985).…”

Section: Archaeological Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Diachronic Variation In the Art Of The Sydney Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Diachronic Variation In the Art Of The Sydney Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

McDonald¹

2008

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“…Although there may have been no floristic change, Hope & Kirkpatrick (1988) suggest that there was a change in vegetation structure. Head (1989) notes that most arguments concerning Aboriginal landscape burning assume a constant impact with little allowance for changes in the impact of burning in response to climate change and variations in Aboriginal populations, especially a possible population increase in the late-Holocene (Lourandos, 1983 ;Ross, 1985). Head (1989) cites several examples where Aboriginal landscape burning is thought either to complement or to oppose the direction of vegetation change under the prevailing Holocene climates (Macphail, 1980(Macphail, , 1984Kershaw, 1983 ;Macphail & Colhoun, 1985).…”

Section: (D) Alternative Perspectives and Alternative Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota

1998

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One of the most complex and contentious issues in Australian ecology concerns the environmental impact of Aboriginal landscape burning. This issue is not only important for the development of a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the Australian biota, but is central to the formulation of appropriate strategies for the conservation of the nation's biodiversity. Ethnographic evidence leaves little doubt that Aboriginal burning played a central role in the maintenance of the landscapes subsequently colonized by Europeans. Both 19th century European colonists and anthropologists in the 20th century documented the indispensability of fire as a tool in traditional Aboriginal economies, which have aptly been described as ‘fire‐stick farming’. Aborigines used fire to achieve short‐term outcomes such as providing favourable habitats for herbivores or increasing the local abundance of food plants, but it is not clear whether or not Aborigines had a predictive ecological knowledge of the long‐term consequences of their use of fire. A large body of ecological evidence suggests that Aboriginal burning resulted in substantial changes in the geographic range and demographic structure of many vegetation types. Aboriginal burning was important in creating habitat mosaics that favoured the abundance of some mammal species and in the maintenance of infrequently burnt habitats upon which the survival of specialized fauna depends. Aboriginal fire regimes were probably critical for the maintenance of at least one species of tree (Callitris intratropica) in the monsoon tropics. The question of the original impact of humans on the Australian environment is fundamentally speculative because of vague, disputed time frames proposed for the waves of colonization and shifting settlement patterns of Aborigines in the late Quaternary period. There is an inherent circular argument concerning the cause and effect of climate change, vegetation change, and burning through the late Quaternary. Charcoal and pollen evidence from long sedimentary cores is ambiguous and cannot be used to demonstrate unequivocally the initial impact of Aboriginal people on the landscapes of Pleistocene Australia. The sparse available evidence does not support the hypotheses that Aboriginal burning was primarily responsible for the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna; was critical for the maintenance of habitats of small mammals that have become extinct following European colonization; initiated widespread accelerated soil erosion rates in either the Pleistocene or Holocene; or forced the evolutionary diversification of the Australian biota. Burning may have caused the extinction of some fire‐sensitive species of plants and animals dependent upon infrequently burnt habitats, and it must have maintained structurally open vegetation such as grasslands and also extended the range of fire‐adapted species, such as Eucalyptus, into environments climatically suitable for rain forest. Palaeoecological research concerning prior impacts of Aborigines must ...

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“…Following the relatively wet and stable climate of the Holocene optimum (;8000-5000 yr BP), orbitally forced changes in solar irradiance strengthened the El Nin˜o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Australia's climate shifted to a drier, more El Nin˜o-dominated state, with current conditions setting in about 2000 yr BP (Donders et al 2008). Human population growth during the Holocene, particularly after 4000 yr BP, has been inferred from archaeological rock-shelter records from different regions of mainland Australia (Ross 1985, Lourandos 1997, Lourandos and David 2002. Although taphonomic (decay process) biases complicate the interpretation of such trends, recent treatments conclude that there is strong evidence for a broadscale increase in human occupation intensity through the Holocene (Johnson andBrook 2011, Williams 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ecological regime shift resulting from disrupted predator–prey interactions in Holocene Australia

Prowse

Johnson

Bradshaw

et al. 2014

Ecology

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Abstract. The mass extinction events during human prehistory are striking examples of ecological regime shifts, the causes of which are still hotly debated. In Australia, human arrival approximately 50 thousand years ago was associated with the continental-scale extinction of numerous marsupial megafauna species and a permanent change in vegetation structure. An alternative stable state persisted until a second regime shift occurred during the late Holocene, when the largest two remaining marsupial carnivores, the thylacine and devil, disappeared from mainland Australia. These extinctions have been widely attributed to the human-assisted invasion of a competing predator, the dingo. In this unusual case, the simultaneous effects of human ''intensification'' (population growth and technological advances) and climate change (particularly increased ENSO variability) have been largely overlooked. We developed a dynamic model system capable of simulating the complex interactions between the main predators (humans, thylacines, devils, dingoes) and their marsupial prey (macropods), which we coupled with reconstructions of human population growth and climate change for lateHolocene Australia. Because the strength of important interspecific interactions cannot be estimated directly, we used detailed scenario testing and sensitivity analysis to identify robust model outcomes and investigate competing explanations for the Holocene regime shift. This approach identified human intensification as the most probable cause, while also demonstrating the potential importance of synergies with the effects of climate change. Our models indicate that the prehistoric impact of humans on Australian mammals was not limited to the late Pleistocene (i.e., the megafaunal extinctions) but extended into the late Holocene.

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Archaeological evidence for population change in the middle to late Holocene in southeastern Australia

Abstract: The Treponematosis of Tahiti: Its Origin and Evolution; a Study of the Sources. By Isaac van der Sluis. Published by Boekhandel & Antiquariatt. B.M. Israël N.V., Amsterdam. Pp. 178. Paper back. Price (not stated).

Cited by 57 publications

References 46 publications

Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

Dreamtime Superhighway (TA27) : Sydney Basin Rock Art and Prehistoric Information Exchange

The impact of Aboriginal landscape burning on the Australian biota

An ecological regime shift resulting from disrupted predator–prey interactions in Holocene Australia

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