Fire-Stick Farming

Conceptualizing power to study social-ecological interactions

“…In the archeological record, it is notoriously difficult to distinguish natural fires from human-made fires. Nevertheless, based on ethnographic and anthropological research, it is assumed that off-site burning, sometimes called "fire-stick farming" (Jones 1969), helped hominids to improve their access to food and made predators more visible. Scherjon et al (2015) provide an impressive overview of the reasons for off-site burning, including: clearing vegetation; warfare; driving and attracting animals; signaling; ritual activities; asserting rights to land; clearing pathways, waterholes, and campsites; and aesthetic pleasure and entertainment.…”

Terrestrial engagements by terminal Lapita maritime specialists on the southern Papuan coast

“…From an archaeological perspective, the most interesting dimension to this work was the novel and provocative suggestion that the transition from rainforest to sclerophyll forest beginning around 38,000 BP may have been related to anthropogenic burning of the landscape since Aboriginal colonisation of the continent (Kershaw 1974:222). In a sense, Kershaw was giving empirical veracity to Rhys Jones's (1969) paradigmatic notion of 'fire-stick farming' and the proposition that 'the arrival of Aboriginal man [to Australia] increased the fire frequency by an enormous amount'. In 1981, Kershaw and colleagues gave further support to the anthropogenic burning interpretation by showing increases in charcoal counts within the Lynch's Crater core coincident with the rainforest-sclerophyll forest transition (Singh et al 1981).…”

The Biohistorical Paradigm: The Early Days of Human Ecology at The Australian National University

“…In some regions, the use of fire by hunter-gatherers sometimes resulted in important ecological changes in the local environment, leading to the replacement of large areas of woodland with grassland and resulting in big increases in the size of herds of grazing animals, and consequently in the supply of animal protein for humans. Fires resulting from human activities had a major impact on vegetation in parts of Australia long before the European invasion of the continent (Jones, 1969).…”