American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—New research confirms that ancient peoples used fire as a tool to manipulate landscapes during their migration into Lutruwita (Tasmania) beginning roughly 41,000 years ago. The practice of burning by early Palawa/Pakana communities then led to an ecological shift from woody to open vegetation. To reconstruct this ancient path of migration and ecological change, Matthew Adeleye and colleagues examined sediment samples from sites in Emerald Swamp and laymina paywuta in the Bass Strait Islands, which were once part of the land bridge that ancient people traversed to reach Lutruwita from the Australian continent. They found records of charcoal accumulation that pointed towards an abrupt increase in fires from vegetation burning around 41,600 years ago. This was followed by shift from woody, closed vegetation to open vegetation in landscapes roughly 2,000 years later. “Fire would have been an important tool used by early Palawa/Pakana communities to penetrate and manage the dense wet forest to promote open vegetation supporting key prey species and to access different raw materials and shelter,” the authors write, noting these observations corroborate existing findings from Lutruwita about Palawa/Pakana land management during the past 11,000 years.
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Article Source: AAAS news release.
*Landscape burning facilitated Aboriginal migration into Lutruwita/Tasmania 41,600 years ago, Science Advances, 15-Nov-2024. 10.1126/sciadv.adp6579
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