A 140,000 year insight into the imprint of climate and humans on Australia. Before the arrival of Europeans, two events shaped Australia's current landscapes and biota more than any others: climate change during the glacial cycle and the arrival of humans on the continent. However, the full scale of these events is not well understood. High resolution analyses of two continuous 140 000 year old sediment deposits will be used in this project to fill this void and answer fundamental questions abou ....A 140,000 year insight into the imprint of climate and humans on Australia. Before the arrival of Europeans, two events shaped Australia's current landscapes and biota more than any others: climate change during the glacial cycle and the arrival of humans on the continent. However, the full scale of these events is not well understood. High resolution analyses of two continuous 140 000 year old sediment deposits will be used in this project to fill this void and answer fundamental questions about how current Australian environments came to be.Read moreRead less
From prehistory to history: landscape and cultural change on the South Alligator River, Kakadu National Park. This project explores the archaeology, history and palaeoecology of the Kakadu floodplains to better understand social and environmental changes that have taken place in this landscape from the mid-Holocene to historical times. The outcome will be a contextualised understanding of potential climate change impacts against a history of past change.
Environmental Transformations linked to Early Human Occupation in Northern Australia. How have interactions between climatic change, human activities and other disturbances over thousands of years shaped the landscapes we know today in Australia? Existing lines of evidence from palaeoecological and archaeological sources point to significant changes to biodiversity, vegetation cover, and fire frequency since the arrival of people into Australia sometime between 50000 to 40000 yr BP. The extent t ....Environmental Transformations linked to Early Human Occupation in Northern Australia. How have interactions between climatic change, human activities and other disturbances over thousands of years shaped the landscapes we know today in Australia? Existing lines of evidence from palaeoecological and archaeological sources point to significant changes to biodiversity, vegetation cover, and fire frequency since the arrival of people into Australia sometime between 50000 to 40000 yr BP. The extent to which humans influenced or overrode natural processes through time remains unclear. High-resolution, multi-proxy data in an innovative vegetation and megafaunal reconstruction will provide the first quantitative assessment of the response of Australian tropical savannas to a range of natural and anthropogenic influences.Read moreRead less