Download Climates of change: human dimensions of Holocene

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Quaternary International 118–119 (2004) 165–179
Climates of change: human dimensions of Holocene environmental
change in low latitudes of the PEPII transect
Simon G. Haberlea,*, Bruno Davidb
b
a
School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
Programme for Australian indigenous Archaeology, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia
Abstract
Rapid climate change events can have devastating impacts upon agricultural production and human society. Advances in spatial
and temporal resolution of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data enable detailed examination of the nature of human–
environment interactions. Recent studies have shown that throughout the Holocene human populations responded to rapid climate
change events by existing subsistence strategies adopting to novel environmental conditions. In the case of agriculturalists in New
Guinea and hunter-gatherers in northern Australia, climate change set in motion a range of biological and demographic possibilities
and restrictions that had long-term consequences for each region. The early Holocene climatic and ensuing environmental
transformations heightened natural biomass production and population increases. Consequently, later rapid changes in climate
centred around 6000 and 3500 cal yr BP, resulted in the adoption of innovative technologies and diverse subsistence strategies
throughout the region that reduced the vulnerability of people in an environment of increasing unpredictable climate variability.
r 2003 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
One of the outstanding features of the PEPII transect
is the presence of shallow warm seas known as the IndoPacific Warm Pool that is adjacent to some of the most
biologically and culturally diverse landscapes of the
world (Myers et al., 2000; Cashdan, 2001). Climatically,
inter-tropical parts of the transect are distinguished by
enhanced tropical convection that has been shown to be
fundamentally important to the general circulation of
the global atmosphere and the operation of the Asian
monsoon (Tapper, 2002). While the annual passage of
the monsoon southward across the equatorial islands
and into northern Australia is a relatively predictable
phenomenon on short timescales, recent extreme climatic events associated with strong El Niño conditions
in 1982–1983 and again in 1997–1998 caused failure of
the monsoon leading to severe drought and extensive
fires across a large part of inter-tropical Austral-Asia.
The impacts of these events on human populations were
*Corresponding author. Resource Management in Asia Pacific
Program, Research school of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian
National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. Tel.: +61-2-6125-3373, fax: +61-3-61-254896.
E-mail address: [email protected] (S.G. Haberle).
significant due to increased levels of atmospheric
pollutants and the loss of crop production leading to
famine and human displacement (Bourke, 2000). How
climate change and variability might affect people over
longer timescales, both in the past and in the present, is
less well understood.
Recent reviews of cultural responses to climate change
during the Holocene in the Old World (Dalfes et al.,
1997; Weiss and Bradley, 2001) and New World (de
Menocal, 2001) have emphasised the vulnerability of
structurally complex societies to abrupt and widespread
climate events. In a study of Mayan settlement in
lowland Guatemala during the late Holocene, Hoddel
et al. (1995) suggest that cultural development and
population expansion occurred under climatic conditions favourable to agriculture and that the subsequent
decline of the Maya cultures were associated with
protracted and severe droughts. Similar sequences of
cultural change are linked to the failure of wetland
agricultural systems in the Bolivian altiplano (Binford
et al., 1997) and in the Amazonian lowlands (Meggers,
1994), while wholesale shifts in settlement-subsistence
systems following prolonged droughts have been documented for 14th century AD Anasazi-Pueblo communities of the American Southwest (e.g. Plog, 1997; Adler,
2002). These studies suggest that there are climatic
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doi:10.1016/S1040-6182(03)00136-8
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thresholds to cultural tolerances and trends, and that
abrupt, unpredictable climate changes can have devastating consequences on human populations by disrupting agricultural production forcing repeated human
dispersal, conflict and realignment of social and trade
networks. However, Williams (2002) also points out that
the timing of climatic disasters and the demise of state
structures are not necessarily synchronous and that
alternative models that incorporate complex social,
ecological and climatic dynamics are required to
adequately account for cultural transformation. Instructive in this context are the findings of Dwyer and
Minnegal (1992) amongst the Kubo of southern Papua
New Guinea, documenting sustained shifts in subsistence practices following major social transformations
during historical times.
The occurrence of major drought episodes in the
lowlands of the Central Americas and Andean highlands
at around 1000 cal yr BP1 have been linked to extreme
ENSO conditions (Thompson et al., 1994; Binford et al.,
1997), and as such, are likely to be associated with
periods of extreme drought in the western Pacific, and
more specifically Southeast Asia, New Guinea and
northern Australia. Historical records show that prolonged droughts of more than 5 yr have occurred on both
sides of the Pacific and have impacts beyond these limits.
The mega-Niño of 1788–1793 represents one of the most
devastating and prolonged droughts that impacted upon
India, the islands of equatorial Pacific and Peru (Ortlieb,
2000). In India the ensuing famine resulted in over 11
million deaths and massive depopulation in agricultural
regions (Groves, 1997). The occurrence and impact of
widespread and protracted drought at earlier times than
this are less well documented.
How significant are rapid climate change events in
human history? Bellwood (1997, p. 310) and Haberle
and Chepstow-Lusty (2000) take the view that cultural
shifts from hunting and gathering to agriculture, that
take place during the early Holocene across the IndoMalaysian Archipelago and the island of New Guinea,
signal wholesale adaptive transformations following
rapid climatic and environmental changes at the end
of the last glacial period. Rowland (1983, 1999) takes a
similar view for late Holocene intensification of resource
production within hunter-gatherer Australia. However,
the evidence for catastrophic collapse of complex
societies that have been linked to rapid climate change,
analogous to those recorded in Mesopotamia and the
New World tropics, is rare in the western equatorial
Pacific. In a study of mid Holocene occupation sites in
northern China, Liu (2000) considers the transformation
of Neolithic culture to a state-level social complex at
1
Ages based on the radiocarbon method are given as calibrated
radiocarbon years before AD 1950 (cal yr BP) based on CALIB v3.1
(Stuiver and Reimer, 1993), unless otherwise stated.
around 4600–4000 cal yr BP to be at least partially the
result of large-scale climate changes. The demise or
collapse of the pre-urban Longshan culture at around
4000 cal yr BP coincides with a period of climate change
characterised by lower temperatures, higher precipitation and increased flooding and course alteration of the
Yellow River. Liu (2000) considers that these changes
triggered major population movements and possibly
decline, realignment of social groups, and inter-polity
conflict.
In this paper, we explore the evidence for the influence
of Holocene climate change on two culturally diverse
human populations—hunter-gatherers of northern Australia and horticulturalists of highland New Guinea—
within the low latitudes of the PEP II transect (Fig. 1).
In investigating causality, the emphasis is on the degree
of chronological fit between major climatic and cultural
changes, and on the adaptability as well as vulnerability
of people to rapid climate change events. In doing so, we
address processes of adaptation, change and intensification not only in terms of shifts from one general food
exploitation strategy to another—i.e. hunting and
gathering to horticulture—but also in terms of their
internal workings.
2. Abrupt climate change events transect during the
Holocene: inter-tropical Austral-Asia
There is increasing evidence for abrupt climate
fluctuations at decadal to century timescales and
possibly global (or at least hemispheric) spatial scales
during the Holocene (Overpeck, 1996). The most
significant periods of change for human populations in
the Northern Hemisphere centre around prolonged
episodes of aridity at 12,800, 8200, 5200 and 4200 cal yr
BP that have been identified in ice cores, marine and
lake sediments, and speleothem records (Weiss, 2000).
The Younger Dryas event lasting from 12,800–
11,500 cal yr BP is the most severe of these fluctuations
and yet evidence for terrestrial biotic or glacial response
in the low latitudes of the PEPII transect remains
problematic (Maloney, 1995). This is best illustrated in
the contrasting marine records from just north of the
equator, where the late glacial transition sea surface
temperature reconstruction from the South China Sea
(5–10 N) shows a well-defined B^lling-Aller^d and
Younger Dryas events (Kienast et al., 2001), whereas
the records from the centre of the Indo Pacific Warm
Pool show no such temperature reversal over the same
time period (Lea et al. 2000; Stott et al., 2002). This
suggests that local climate dynamics associated with the
Indo-Pacific Warm Pool may have overshadowed any
influence from deglaciation in the Northern Hemisphere. Similar conclusions can be drawn for the 8200,
5200 and 4200 cal yr BP events, where there are potential
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167
Fig. 1. Location of the highlands of New Guinea and SE Cape York Peninsula in northern Australia. Inset: Austral-Asian Inter-tropics.
candidates in the palaeo-records (e.g. a brief cold spike
centred on 8100 cal yr BP from coral records, Gagan
et al., 2003) that could be matched with these episodes in
time. However, these records are neither spatially
coherent, nor is their dating demonstrably synchronous
to justify considering them as directly associated with
these identified Northern Hemisphere events. Whether
or not these events are truly global, or rather as their
spatial distribution suggests restricted to the Northern
Hemisphere, is yet to be determined.
Fig. 2 compares proxies of environmental change for
inter-tropical PEP II and globally. Episodes of abrupt
climate change have been recorded in the low latitudes
of Australia and Southeast Asia during the Holocene.
High levels of precipitation and cloudiness in the region
today are strongly influenced by the Intertropical
Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where converging and
seasonally fluctuating moisture-carrying winds from
the north and south ascend and create high moisture
and cloudy conditions. The combination of palaeoclimate evidence derived from vegetation histories and
ocean sediment records suggest that the ITCZ has
fluctuated significantly since the last glacial maximum
around 22,000 yr ago due to changing influence from the
Southern Hemisphere summer monsoon and the southeast trade winds (Huang et al., 1997; Wyrwoll and
Miller, 2001). Long-term climatic and environmental
trends based on equatorial glaciers (Hope and Peterson,
1976), ancient pollen, charcoal and lake levels (Barmawidjaja et al., 1993; Flenley, 1998; Haberle, 1998;
Haberle et al. 2001; Jarvis, 1993) indicate that conditions were dry and possibly as much as 5–7 C cooler
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3
Age (10 cal yr B.P.)
2
0
Abrupt climate change
events identified in the
Northern Hemisphere
ENSO warm
events
per 500 yrs
(a)
180
4
6
4.2 5.2
8
10
8.2
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
12.8
(b)
100
20
0.4 (c)
Regional Biomass Burning
(Cumulative Charcoal)
0
(d)
28
South China Sea
& Indo-Pacific Warm Pool
26
SST (°C)
ODP Hole 806B (Mg/Ca)
Core 17940 (Alken.)
24
480 (e)
Insolation
(W/m2)
420
Ice Core Data
δ18O
(%o)
Northern Hemisphere Summer
10°S
Southern Hemisphere Summer
10°N
450
-32
Antartica: Taylor Dome
-40 (f)
-34
Greenland: GISP2
-42
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
3
Age (10 cal yr B.P.)
Fig. 2. Comparison between equatorial PEP-II and global climate proxies. (a) abrupt climate change events identified in the Northern Hemisphere
(Weiss, 2000), (b) number of El Niño events per 500 yr in an orbitally forced model of the tropical Pacific (Clement et al., 2000), (c) regional biomass
burning derived from a cumulative charcoal record from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (Haberle et al., 2001), (d) reconstructed sea surface
temperatures using foraminiferal Mg/Ca in ODP Hole 806B on the Ontong Java Plateau (after Lea et al., 2000) and alkenones from Core 17940 in
the South China Sea (after Pelejero et al., 1999), (e) summer insolation at low latitudes (10 S and 10 N; Berger and Loutre, 1991), (f) ice-core data
from northern hemisphere (d18O, GISP2; Grootes et al., 1993) and southern hemisphere (d18O, Byrd, Broecker, 1998).
during the last glacial maximum. Some parts of northeast Queensland received only about one third of
today’s rainfall levels (currently 800–1100 mm per
annum in most parts). Despite the very high rainfall
received today in the highlands of New Guinea (around
2000 mm per annum up to as high as 8000 mm per
annum) some highland valleys did not then support
forest cover due to high levels of disturbance from
biomass burning (Haberle et al., 2001). This has been
interpreted as a combination of lower precipitation and
greater variability in rainfall patterns, enhancing the
potential for frequent fires between 20,000 and
10,000 cal yr BP. Climatic ‘amelioration’ began around
17,000–15,500 cal yr BP in the highlands of New Guinea,
when rainfall associated with the greater influence of the
Southern Hemisphere summer monsoon began to
increase. However, the impact of this change may not
have been as severe until much later in areas influenced
by rapidly changing coastlines such as the Atherton
Tableland (southeastern corner of Cape York), where
increases in precipitation were probably most severe just
prior to 11,500 cal yr BP (Hiscock and Kershaw, 1992).
The highest levels of precipitation and temperature
occurred across the region during the early Holocene
after 10,000 cal yr BP. An early Holocene phase of mild
climate is indicated by the absence of ice on the summit
of Mount Wilhelm from around 9500–6000 cal yr BP
(Hope, 1976), and the forest limit was 100–200 m higher
than its present position. This is sometimes referred to in
the literature as the ‘hypsithermal interval’ (Webster and
Streten, 1978). The forest limit settled to its present level
around 6000 cal yr BP on Mount Wilhelm, when slightly
cooler conditions prevailed. Pollen records from the
New Guinea highland valleys indicate human impact as
early as 7800 cal yr BP and intensifying through to the
present (Haberle et al., 1991; Haberle, 2000). Here
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human impacts may have overshadowed climate
changes during this time. Proxy records of temperature
change in northern Australia indicate that there may
have been abrupt climate cooling centred around
8100 cal yr BP from coral records (Gagan et al., 2003)
and between 6890 and 6090 cal yr BP from temperature
reconstructions using Chironmidae from Lake Barrine
in northern Australia (Dimitriadis and Cranston, 2001).
While these records may represent real changes locally
there is no indication that these are the result of
widespread climate processes. Within the alpine regions
where human impact is less intense there is evidence that
at least four neoglacial advances of highland glaciers
have occurred during the last 3500 yr (Hope and
Peterson, 1976), suggesting minor temperature fluctuations were probably experienced lower down in the
occupied valleys. However, the dating of these events
remains problematic.
Recent climate models for the early mid-Holocene
under altered insolation forcing indicate links between
the strengthened Asian monsoon, seasonally enhanced
tradewinds in the tropical Pacific, and the frequency and
magnitude of strong El Niño temperature perturbations
(Clement et al., 2000; Liu et al., 2000). A steady increase
in large El Niño events is observed during the Holocene,
with a peak ca.3000–1000 yr ago (Fig. 2). The regional
burning curve for the highlands of New Guinea shows a
dramatic increase in response to increased climate
variability after 6000 cal yr BP and peaking between
4500 and 1000 cal yr BP (Haberle et al., 2001). Rainfall
levels in northern Australia decreased after 3500 cal yr
BP, with more open vegetation associated with episodes
of dune mobilisation during the late Holocene (Shulmeister and Lees, 1995). General agreement exists between
the palaeo-ENSO results and the model scenario shown.
Other smaller scale climatic factors such as drought
and frost frequency may also have varied throughout
the Holocene. These factors have been of particular
concern to climatologists and geographers alike because
of their interest in the possible links between El Niño/
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and the occurrence
of frost and drought. Allen et al. (1989) investigated the
behaviour of these phenomena in New Guinea and
found no systematic relationship between frost and
drought events and ENSO. The persistence of severe
drought and frost events back into the Holocene, similar
to those apparent in recent climate records and oral
histories, is as yet not visible in the palaeoenvironmental
record (Brookfield, 1989). It will require not only fine
resolution pollen analysis of vegetation histories but also
a much better understanding of the modern climatic
processes associated with drought and frost for a useful
investigation of late Holocene climatic change to be
carried out.
While there is no convincing evidence that major
climate events of 12,800, 8200, 5200 and 4200 cal yr BP,
169
identified in records from the Northern Hemisphere,
have a significant impact on the fossil biota of the
Australasian tropics, there are periods of major climate
change at around 6000–5000 and 3500–1000 cal yr BP
that have been identified in the regional palaeoclimate
records (Fig. 2).
In such context of climate change, we can now ask
whether or not it can be assumed that the large-scale and
relatively rapid climatic transformations impacted existing human adaptive strategies—in both huntergatherer and horticultural systems—and, if so, how
did people in the low latitude environments of New
Guinea and in northern Australia respond and adapt
during the Holocene? To address these questions
requires exploring the climatic and archaeological
records of both these regions.
3. Case studies on human–environment interactions
3.1. Australian aboriginal responses to environmental
change: southeast Cape York Peninsula
Cape York Peninsula is Australia’s largest peninsula.
This was the last part of Australia to be attached to New
Guinea during the early Holocene as rising seas finally
sundered the last of the land bridge to form what has
come to be known as Torres Strait.
Some 800 km long, Cape York today contains a broad
range of landforms, from low-lying sandy plains to
plateaux, rugged hills and dissected gorges. The
peninsula can be divided into three general longitudinal
topographic, geological and biogeographic zones. Along
the eastern seaboard is a narrow coastal plain that rarely
exceeds 5 km in width, rapidly giving way to the
mountains of the Great Dividing Range in the west.
Along its lower western slopes, the Great Divide merges
with the broad, expansive plains that stretch all the way
to Cape York’s west coast, up to 300 km away.
Archaeological research in the southeastern corner of
Cape York began in the early 1960s. Since then, 42 caves
and rockshelters have been excavated, more than in any
similar-sized region of Australia. In addition, 10 shell
mounds have also been radiocarbon dated. These sites
occur in six main regions representing a range of
environmental conditions: Princess Charlotte Bay and
the Flinders Islands (small continental islands and
sandstone-rich coastlines); the Koolburra Plateau and
Laura (rugged, dissected sandstone ranges); the Mitchell-Palmer and Chillagoe (limestone karst outcrops on
alluvial plains); and Ngarrabullgan (large conglomerate
mesa surrounded by volcanic and metamorphic sediments). With the exception of three rockshelters and the
shell mounds from Princess Charlotte Bay and the
Flinders Islands towards the extreme north of the study
region, all of these sites are situated well inland (and
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mostly west of the Great Dividing Range), in environmental settings never directly affected by rising or falling
sea levels.
The oldest known human occupation in southeast
Cape York dates to 35,460+750/ 690 14C yr BP at
Ngarrabullgan Cave. Numerous other caves and rockshelters (e.g. Sandy Creek 1, Nonda Rock) contain
Pleistocene occupation (some dating to 30,000 14C yr BP
or more), but the majority of sites date to the Holocene
only (Table 1).
Of the 38 caves and rockshelters from which radiocarbon dates have been obtained, 33 have basal or nearbasal dates. From these, we can calculate changing
occupational trends for the region as a whole by plotting
the number of sites known to have been occupied
through time. Over the long-term, the temporal trends
for southeast Cape York are clear. Most sites were
inhabited after 5500 cal yr BP, with an increase in the
Table 1
The timing of earliest occupation, by site in north Queensland (for
source of radiocarbon data see Appendix 16.1 in Lourandos and
David, 2002)
Site
First evidence of human
occupation, in uncalibrated
radiocarbon years BP
Hand Shelter
Fig Tree Shelter
Mordor Cave
Grass Tree Shelter (inner)
Lookout Shelter 1
Endaen Rockshelter
Courtyard Rock
Kookaburra Rock
Alkaline Hill Rockshelter
Painted Ell
Gorge Creek Shelter
Giant Horse Gallery
Pete’s Chase
Bush Peg Shelter
Dragonfly Hollow
Walaemini Rockshelter
Initiation Cave
Platform Gallery
Echidna Shelter
Red Bluff Rockshelter
Grass Tree Shelter (outer)
Sandy Creek 2
Red Horse Rockshelter
Quinine Bush Shelter
Green Ant Rockshelter
Tunnel Shelter
Magnificent Gallery
Early Man Rockshelter
Yam Camp
Nonda Rock
Hay Cave
Fern Cave
Sandy Creek 1
Ngarrabullgan Cave
667733
1440760
1580770
1610740
18807100
23707100
2790780
2950780
3440780
3620770
3700760
3750780
4040780
4160760
4430780
4760790
5290760
61207150
72807130
75307110
7600760
7830780
83107120
8390760
86607340
10,120760
10,250790
15,45071500
B25,000
B26,2007450
29,70071050
30,3007800
31,900+700/-600
35,460+750/-690
number of occupied sites occurring through time. If the
number of sites occupied during a given period of time is
a reflection of the frequency of visits and/or the length of
stay at each site, then it appears that, during the
Holocene, the onset of wet conditions was accompanied
by: (1) more people moving across the landscape,
creating and using more sites in the process; or (2)
changed settlement systems as more or less stable
populations moved residence more frequently. These
increases in intensities of regional occupation or
settlement shifts indicate that socio-demographic conditions and people-land relations—population numbers
and/or residential structures—were changing.
Looking at these same data in terms of the establishment of new occupational sites—a measure that relates
to such things as changing settlement strategies, changing familiarity with local environments, and the
establishment of new settlement locations in the face
of changing demographic pressures—signals that many
new sites were first occupied during the mid to late
Holocene, indicating regional demographic transformations. This pattern is likely to have been caused by
general rises in population numbers and densities across
the regional landscape. These changes were most
pronounced from the mid to the late Holocene, with a
major increase in overall settlement numbers, shifts in
the spatial distribution of occupation sites, or population displacement reaching a peak after ca.5500 cal yr
BP (see David, 2002 for data). Irrespective of ultimate
causes, expansions into new residential locations and
increasing intensities of regional land use are implicated.
These changes are likely to indicate increased density of
human population in southeast Cape York, particularly
during the late Holocene.
As people occupy places, they leave behind material
traces of their actions in the form of hearths, stone
artefacts, food remains and the like. The deposition
rates of such cultural materials within sites have been
studied and used by many Australian archaeologists as
gross indicators of relative intensities of site use,
although it is also recognised that structural (qualitative) rather than quantitative socio-cultural changes
may at times best explain such archaeological changes.
Results for southeast Cape York demonstrate that, in
the majority of cases, deposition rates of cultural
materials, and especially stone artefacts and ochre,
increase significantly during the mid to late Holocene.
Some sites have more than one major peak in deposition
rates. Others show erratic fluctuations. With four
exceptions, the major peaks in deposition rates of
stone artefacts always occur during the mid to late
Holocene. These increases begin at various times
between 6200 cal yr BP (Ngarrabullgan Cave) and
1700–900 cal yr BP (Early Man Rockshelter), with most
taking place during the last 4500 yr and involving a
doubling or tripling of rates during the mid–late
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Holocene (David, 2002). These trends cannot be
explained as a function of taphonomic bias, as in many
cases cultural sequences can be traced back into the
Pleistocene, often with well preserved organic deposits
in limestone caves. Overall, increasing intensities of site
and regional land use are implied, indicating changing
relations between people and their environments. Here
again, then, demographic conditions are indicated to
have changed after 4500–3500 cal yr BP, typically
indicating a doubling to tripling of intensities of site
use if artefact deposition rates can be taken to reflect
general occupational intensities.
Sediments are deposited under historically specific
environmental conditions; changes in sedimentation
rates within sites imply changes in depositional and/or
erosional regimes. In general, other factors being equal,
sedimentation rates in caves and rockshelters tend to
increase with increasing intensities of human occupation. This correlation is largely the product of three
factors: (1) the introduction of new raw materials (e.g.
wood for fires) into a site; (2) the initiation or
acceleration of cave wall disintegration as a result of
human-induced microclimatic changes (e.g. fire-induced) and mechanical erosion (e.g. touching, trampling); and/or (3) the initiation or acceleration of slope
instability and colluvial slope wash as a result of
increased firing or clearing of the landscape. Sedimentation rates are therefore a potential tool for exploring
changing relations between people and place.
There is strong and repeated evidence for changing
sedimentation rates within excavated sites across southeast Cape York. Major, 2.5- to 5.5-fold increases in
sedimentation rates occurred in almost all the excavated
sites during the mid to late Holocene, most sites
hovering around a 3-fold increase (David, 2002). That
is, sediments accumulated consistently faster during the
mid and late Holocene than earlier, suggesting increasing intensities of site and regional land use. However, we
must be cautious in interpretation as few detailed
geomorphological studies have yet been undertaken.
The results are nevertheless consistent with the findings
of other proxy tests, changing sedimentation regimes
apparently attesting to rising levels of regional land use
during the mid and late Holocene, particularly after
4000 yr BP.
Very few recognised stone artefact types have ever
been excavated in southeast Cape York. The exceptions
are edge-ground axes (present since the late Pleistocene),
seed grinding stones and Burren adzes. Rare backed
flakes are also found, but in very low numbers and in
very few sites. When found, they are in mid to late
Holocene contexts, the only exception being Walkunder
Arch Cave where three flakes with backing were found
in terminal Pleistocene deposits (Campbell, 1982, 1984).
Given this limited range of recognised formal types, few
typological changes can be expected through time.
171
Burren adzes—stone tools that were once hafted onto
wooden handles and used to shape wooden artefacts of
various kinds (e.g. shields, wooden containers)—are
repeatedly found across the peninsula after 4500 cal yr
BP (and especially after 2400 cal yr BP), but clearly
absent during earlier times. They are, therefore, an
exclusively late Holocene phenomenon that continued
into ethnographic times.
In Australia generally, few stone artefacts can
unambiguously be said to be directly related to food
processing. Of these, an important and well-defined
temporal trend has emerged. Food processing stone
artefacts are almost always limited to seed-grinding
stones, which in Cape York have never been found in
contexts older than 1800 cal yr BP (at Sandy Creek 1;
they also occur in the very upper, undated units of Giant
Horse Gallery, the base of which site is dated to
ca.4200 cal yr BP). These dates correspond favourably
with similar ages for the commencement of systematic
seed grinding and for the processing of toxic plants
elsewhere in central and eastern Australia (see David,
2002, chapter 8). The implication is that major changes
in diet occurred in Cape York during the late Holocene,
changes that saw the exploitation of new staple plant
foods in some regions available in vast quantities. The
ramifications of such a change are not exclusively
economic or demographic, but also imply changes in
the way people interacted with and symbolised their
immediate surroundings, transforming grasslands to
harvestable fields, previously unused stone outcrops
into sources of stone that could be worked into
economically valuable (including tradeable) grinding
stones. The commencement of seed grinding implies
transformations as to how people visualised and
signified their surroundings. These changes have bearing
on the scheduling of everyday life and seasonal cycles.
There is an implication here for both a conceptualisation
of the landscape and for the use and management (and
therefore labour) of the land—both instances of shifting
relations between people and between people and their
environments. David (2002, chapter 8) has explored
these issues in considerable detail.
Systematic recordings have been made in southeast
Cape York of 10,746 rock pictures from 398 sites,
representing 19 geographically distinct regions. Of these
a clear temporal trend emerges, from early artistic
conventions spread across the peninsula, to increasing
regionalism beginning around 3700 and culminating
after 2000 cal yr BP. The late Holocene rock-art of Cape
York can thus be read as a statement of the structured
division of socially engaged, marked and signified space.
In the increasing regionalism of post-3700 cal yr BP
times, the landscape became newly differentiated. The
rock-art can be seen as a mark of regional difference and
symbolic structure. What we find in Cape York is not a
widespread and static socio-spatial system, but instead a
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dynamic and emerging set of geographically distinctive
networks of place marking. During the late Pleistocene
and early Holocene, the landscape was inscribed with
geographically relatively homogeneous artistic symbols,
becoming increasingly regionalised after 3700 cal yr BP.
This process of regionalisation continued with
increasing momentum through the course of the late
Holocene, the intensity and nature of painting activity
beginning to approximate the ethnographic situation
around 2000 cal yr BP.
At nearly 50 km across, Princess Charlotte Bay is
large. Ten shell mounds represent the only open sites to
have been radiocarbon dated in southeast Cape York.
Measuring up to 30 m in diameter and 5 m in height, the
mounded middens consist almost entirely of a single
species of shell, Anadara granosa, a species of cockle that
can be found in mangrove beds nearby. Such shell
mounds are common on the mid-Holocene chenier
plains of the bay, and date from 2000–1600 to 500–
400 cal yr BP only (Beaton, 1985 8–9). Being more recent
than the chenier plains themselves (formed 7000–
4500 cal yr BP), formation of the middens can be
attributed to the onset of new, centralised consumption
bases, novel foraging practices, disposal patterns and
site selection across the bay. The systematic exploitation
of mangrove beds, especially A. granosa, implies the
beginnings of a new, specialised and focused subsistence
strategy from 2000 to 1600 cal yr BP.
In southeast Cape York the mid to late Holocene was
a period of demographic and cultural dynamism.
Lourandos and David (2002) show that elsewhere in
Australia similar changes have been documented,
including: (1) major increases in deposition rates of
stone artefacts and food refuse; (2) the advent of new
tool types (including fish hooks and grinding stones) and
site types (e.g. shell and earth mounds); (3) the use of
new plant foods (including systematic seed grinding in
the arid zone and techniques for detoxifying poisonous
plants in central and north Queensland); (4) demographic expansions onto previously unused offshore
islands; (5) increases in the frequency or intensity of
firing of the landscape (e.g. the Sydney Basin); and (6)
probably also the beginnings of complex installations to
increase productive yields in some parts of Australia
(e.g. inland river eel-traps in western Victoria; coastal
fish traps in southeast Queensland). Together, these
innovations and amplifications of existing cultural
practices imply an expansion of settlement into previously unused or little-used habitats, including:
(1) a more intensive use of marginal environments;
(2) an ‘intensification’ of landscape management practices (e.g. burning); and (3) a broadening of resource
bases during the mid to late Holocene. These changes
imply marked population growth and geographical
expansions, increases in intensities of site and regional
land use, and increased levels of regional demographic
packing across much of Australia during the mid to late
Holocene.
Dynamism does not appear to have been uniform
across the landscape, or contemporaneous in all cultural
dimensions. This begs the question of whether a single,
systemic re-modelling of socio-economic networks is
indicated, or whether the various related, but to some
degree regionally distinctive, changes can be attributed
to a variety of proximal causes.
Further, an important aspect of change appears to
have been a continuing increase in the use of some
regional landscapes (e.g. western Victoria), and a
possible decrease or stabilisation in others (e.g. Central
Queensland Highlands) during the last 2000 yr or so.
These geographically distinct socio-demographic trends
imply a combination of shifting and increasing demographic structures and settlement systems through time.
The mid to late Holocene thus witnessed widespread
cultural transformations across southeast Cape York,
akin to similar transformations elsewhere on the
continent. This was a period of largely unprecedented
rates of change, involving the appearance of shorterspaced regions of artistic influence, new artefact forms,
new manufacturing technologies, changing resource
management strategies, food processing procedures
and settlement-subsistence systems. These alterations
were not haphazard, but involved increases in the
numbers of sites occupied and in deposition rates of
cultural materials and sediments within sites, as well as a
broadening of site types and increasing social regionalism. Together, these innovations suggest a general,
approximately 3-fold increase in intensities of site and
regional land use during the mid to late Holocene; a
growth in the use of regional landscapes through time.
These changes were most pronounced between 3700 and
2000 yr BP.
3.2. Melanesian responses to environmental change:
highlands of New Guinea
The highlands of New Guinea refers to the inland
regions of the island between an altitude of about 1200
and 2500 m above sea level (asl), where broad valleys
support high population densities. The earliest archaeological evidence for human settlement in the highlands
of New Guinea comes from two sites in the eastern
part of the island: Kosipe, an open site at 2000 m asl
(White et al., 1970) and Nombe, a rockshelter at
1660 m asl (Gillieson and Mountain, 1983). Both sites
have initial occupation evidence dated to around
29,000 cal yr BP and contain evidence of exploitation
of local resources, possibly in a seasonal manner, during
a period which was cooler than present.
A gradual increase in the number of occupied
rockshelters occurs between 18,000 and 10,000 cal yr
BP (Fig. 3) (Table 2) as temperatures along with
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173
Fig. 3. Time series of archaeological sites and items recovered from these sites over the last 21,000 14C yr BP (500 yr time slices) in north Queensland
(see Table 2). The data has been clustered into zones based on CONISS, and statistical package associated with TILIA (Grimm, 1991).
biomass increase. This may represent an increase in
population numbers within the valley systems or a
greater mobility of populations at lower altitude
exploiting highland valleys as species previously excluded from the highlands dispersed up slope following
climatic change. Although a number of food species are
excluded from the highlands during colder periods,
including tubers and fruits like yams and bananas
important in traditional New Guinea agriculture, a
range of vegetable foods, which are recorded as
cultivated in modern gardens, may have been viable in
highlands valleys (Haberle and Chepstow-Lusty, 2000).
These included traditionally important cultigens like
taro (Colocasia esculenta), sugarcane (Saccharum officinale) and gourd (Cucurbitaceae), though there is some
question as to whether these were in fact present in the
island before the Holocene (Bellwood, 1996). The
occurrence of infrequent but severe droughts and
associated frost particularly between 20,000 and
11,500 cal yr BP in highland New Guinea (Fig. 4),
would have put sustained production of most food
plants out of question, but short-term and sporadic
production would have been possible in this environment. Limited and localised as forest clearances for such
purposes may have been, they would have added to
other benefits of extending open vegetation for hunting
and ease of communication.
At Sirunki (2500 m asl, Walker and Flenley, 1979) and
Haeapugua (1650 m asl, Haberle, 1998) the pollen
evidence points to retardation in the establishment of
forest until 10,000 cal yr BP. The sporadic development
of montane forest in highland valleys at the end of the
Number of
occupied caves
and rockshelters
Timing when
stone artefact
deposition rates
begin to increase
Timing when
sedimentation
rates begin to
increase
Earliest Burren
adzes
Earliest blades
and microblades
Earliest seed
grinding stones
Timing when
ochre deposition
rates begin to
increase
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
6500
7000
7500
8000
8500
9000
10,000
10,500
11,000
11,500
12,000
12,500
13,000
13,500
14,000
14,500
15,000
15,500
16,000
16,500
17,000
17,500
18,000
18,500
19,000
19,500
20,000
20,500
21,000
62
61
64
57
46
41
32
35
28
23
12
15
8
9
10
11
10
4
1
4
5
4
4
6
7
8
5
2
2
4
3
3
2
2
1
0
1
1
2
2
3
3
20
22
22
23
21
21
19
18
15
14
13
12
12
11
11
10
7
5
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
0
0
4
2
4
0
3
4
2
2
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
0
1
0
3
2
0
1
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
4
2
2
0
0
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
2
0
2
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
3
4
2
0
5
5
2
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
3
1
2
1
3
3
1
1
0
1
0
1
3
2
1
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Number of sites
Number of
when occupation
carbon dates
(Rick’s method) begins
S.G. Haberle, B. David / Quaternary International 118–119 (2004) 165–179
Years BP
(beginning)
174
Table 2
List of items recovered from excavations over the last 21,000 yr (500 yr time slices) in north Queensland (for source data see Appendix 16.1 in Lourandos and David, 2002). (for an explanation of
Rick’s method see Lourandos and David (2002, p. 310) and Rick, (1987)
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175
Age (10 3 cal yr B.P.)
2
0
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
(a)
Severe
ENSO
droughts
Climate change
in PEP-II tropics
Warm
Wet
Stable
Cool
Dry
Unstable
Cold
-5oC
0.4 (b)
Regional Biomass Burning
(Cumulative Charcoal)
Scheme for development
of agriculture in the
highlands of New Guinea
0
megafauna
(c)
small game
Hunting
Foraging
Forest Swidden
Swamp gardens
Grassland gardens/
monocultures
Agroforestry
Raised garden beds
40
(d)
Number of occupied
archaeological sites
in the highlands of New Guinea
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
3
Age (10 cal yr B.P.)
Fig. 4. Comparison between climate and cultural change during the last 24,000 cal yr BP. (a) general trends in climate change in New Guinea
(Haberle et al., 2001), (b) regional biomass burning derived from a cumulative charcoal record from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (Haberle
et al., 2001), (c) a possible scheme for the development of agriculture in the highlands of New Guinea (Haberle and Chepstow-Lusty, 2000), (d)
number of archaeological sites occupied in the highlands of New Guinea (500 yr time slices) adapted from data in Table 2 of Haberle (1993, p. 111).
last glacial indicates that conditions were not uniformly
suitable for forest development until after this time.
These inconsistencies reinforce the suggestion that fire,
of either natural or anthropogenic origin, may have
played a significant role in reducing the suitability of
new forest habitats that were liberated from cold
temperatures and low atmospheric CO2, but not free
from frequent fires (Haberle et al., 2001).
The timing and nature of the beginnings of agriculture
in the highlands of New Guinea remains a contentious
issue (Spriggs, 1996; see Bird et al., 2003). If agriculture
was being practiced around 10,000 cal yr BP in the
Wahgi Valley, Papua New Guinea, as suggested from
the archaeological evidence at Kuk Swamp (Golson,
1991), then current pollen evidence does not register
clearance until 2200 yr later, in the Baliem Valley,
West Papua, where forest clearance, characterised by
loss of forest cover, increased secondary forest taxa
and increased burning, is found (Haberle et al., 1991).
This suggests that either the agricultural activity
remained very localised for a long period of time or
that the nature of the antiquity of early agriculture in
New Guinea requires re-assessment. However, by
6000 cal yr BP and after, many swamp forest environments experienced rapid loss of old growth forest species
and replacement with fast growing secondary woody
species or open grass/sedge swampland (Haberle,
1998, 2000). This can be ascribed to an increase in the
intensity of wetland use at Kuk Swamp by Phase 2
(Bayliss-Smith, 1996), and at different times across the
highlands, coupled with an increase in climate variability due to the onset of more frequent and more
intense El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events.
The increase in occupation sites across the highlands at
6000 cal yr BP may reflect a dramatic increase in
population numbers as technological transformations
and clearance of swamp forest environments for food
production took place. The implication is that: (1) more
people were able to subsist in the highlands, creating
and using more sites in the process; or (2) settlement
systems changed as more or less stable populations
utilised a greater range of environments within a more
unpredictable climate regime. This is akin to the
transformations in socio-demographic conditions and
people-land relations that were taking place in northern
Australia at the same time.
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S.G. Haberle, B. David / Quaternary International 118–119 (2004) 165–179
Within the last 3500 yr of agricultural activity at Kuk
the appearance of three important techniques found in
contemporary gardening are recorded; soil tillage by
2500 cal yr BP, tree-fallowing by around 1200 cal yr BP
and raised-bed cultivation by 400 cal yr BP (Golson,
1977; Golson and Gardner, 1990). There are no other
sites in New Guinea that show an equivalent sequence of
development, though fossil agricultural structures are
known from the Arona Valley in the Eastern Highlands
and elsewhere. The only other major events during the
last 3500 yr in the highlands that have been established
from the archaeological record is the occupation of open
sites in the Eastern Highlands (Watson and Cole, 1977)
and the development of complex systems of exchange
involving stone axes from the Tuman quarries south of
the Wahgi Valley (Burton, 1984). Burton’s (1984)
analysis of stone axes from these quarries and fragments
found in excavations of rockshelters suggested to him
that the process of stone axe exchange began sometime
between 2500 and 1400 cal yr BP. These changes are
particularly significant as they demonstrate a possible
interconnected development in land use, settlement
patterns and sociopolitical structure that undoubtedly
had major impact on the environment (Golson and
Gardner, 1990).
Comparison of the available palaeoenvironmental
data from New Guinea with the record from intertropical America shows a striking synchrony between
apparent low climatic variability during the Medieval
Warm Period and the absence of swamp agriculture at
Kuk (Fig. 5, adapted from Haberle and ChepstowLusty, 2000). Swamp cultivation appears to occur
during periods of greatest climatic variability. Periods
of chronic drought stress may have initiated the need for
greater groundwater control leading to the development
of grid patterns of field ditches, seen in Phase 4 and
onwards at Kuk swamp (Bayliss-Smith and Golson,
1992). Long-term anthropogenic landscape change,
notably forest clearance and land degradation before
1190–970 cal yr BP, has been implicated in the adoption
of widespread Casuarina planting as an agroforestry
tree. Casuarina is a nitrogen-fixing tree used in traditional agroforestry systems that have played a significant role in sustaining human populations in a variety of
tropical soil and climate conditions, and may have
been adopted as a response to low crop productivity
and the need to rehabilitate abandoned dryland crop
lands after prolonged climatic stress. A similar
process has been invoked to explain the adoption of
Alnus as an important agroforestry tree by Inca
peoples in the Peruvian Andes around 850 cal yr BP
(Haberle and Chepstow-Lusty, 2000). These cultural
transformations of the last 3500 yr are, curiously,
akin to the multifarious cultural changes that took
place in north Queensland during the late Holocene,
including increased intensities of site and regional land
Fig. 5. Causes of social change in equatorial Americas and New Guinea. A series of climate proxy records (temperature from Huascaran ice core
d18O record; drought periods from Quelcaya ice core dust particles >1.59 mm; a composite time series for the recurrence of El Niño events since
1000 cal yr BP and the occurrence of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Epoch from equatorial South America and archaeological phases from
the Yucatan lowlands (Maya) and the Bolivian altiplano (Tiwanaku; Alnus agroforestry) are compared with inferred climate and cultural changes in
highland New Guinea over the last 2000 cal yr BP. Kuk swamp agricultural phases and the development of Casuarina agroforestry show the
switching from wetland to dryland agriculture under the influence of tephra impact and climate change (from Haberle and Chepstow-Lusty, 2000).
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use, socio-political regionalisation, and qualitative
changes in artefact types.
4. Discussion
The above investigation of past Australian and New
Guinean landscape dynamics has revealed a fundamental flaw in the traditional dichotomy between the socalled natural and human-influenced landscapes. Ecosystems have been greatly modified by people for
thousands of years, while natural processes have
themselves played a part in influencing the transformation of human societies through time. This implies that
changes in climate, resources and habitats are not simply
background information of little relevance to cultural
change, but that they must be considered a continually
changing set of problems and opportunities altering the
context for human subsistence and diversity (Cashdan,
2001). This approach challenges historical convention
by the attention it gives to non-human agencies on
cultural transformation.
Yet in addressing causality there nevertheless remains
the critical problem of linking scales of environmental
change with those of human experience. We suggest that
there are climatic thresholds of cultural tolerance under
any pre-existing social or adaptive strategies, and that
abrupt, unpredictable climate changes on decadal to
century time scales can and in practice do have
devastating consequences on human populations by
disrupting both resource production and the social
structures through which people relate to their social
and physical environments. These destabilising climatic
forces necessitate ongoing social and cultural responses
involving demographic expansion or contraction at
various social scales, or realignments of social alliance
strategies and networks. Such linked processes of change
are well exemplified, we argue, by the increased social
regionalism of the late Holocene in north Queensland,
socio-structural transformations that took place following major and sustained population increases during the
early to mid Holocene climatic optimum, when natural
levels of biomass productivity were at their peak. In this
case, we suggest that climatic and environmental
transformations during the early to mid Holocene led
to noticeable increases in human populations across
north Queensland by 6000 cal yr BP. When natural
levels of bioproduction began to decrease and climate
variability began to increase during the late Holocene,
heightened regional populations began to fission into
new and distinctively smaller land-owning and landusing groups, as evidenced by a regionalisation of rockart styles after 3700 cal yr BP. However, even then the
process of change cannot be said to have stabilised, for
through social fissioning and territorial regionalisation a
new ecological dynamic was triggered. Thus, given ‘a
177
reduction in the size of a group’s effective subsistence
range, the number of plant species available for
exploitation decreases as a power function of the scale
of the reduction in area’ and as ‘subsistence area and
species richness are reduced as a power function of area,
hunter-gatherers normally rely more heavily on fewer
animal species of smaller and smaller body size, other
things being equal’ (Binford, 2001, p. 367). Predictably,
in north Queensland following a regionalisation of
territorial networks around 3700 cal yr BP there is
evidence for a broadening of the range of foodstuffs
consumed and the commencement of toxic plant
exploitation, and elsewhere with the commencement of
systematic seed grinding by 3000–1400 cal yr BP (David,
2002, chapter 8, and for similar modelling for southeast
Queensland see McNiven, 1999, pp. 158–159). At
Princess Charlotte Bay, there is the onset of large-scale
exploitation of the small marine bivalve A. granosa in
central residential places only after 2000–1600 cal yr BP.
With such socio-structural and dietary innovations came
a heightened ability to sustain increasing human
populations over both the short and long terms,
allowing people to transcend demographic thresholds
previously shackled at this scale of analysis by climatic
and environmental circumstances. Here then we suggest
is evidence for a late broad-spectrum revolution in
mainland Australia during the late Holocene, a transformation in ecological relations set in motion by a
chain of events each of which was predicated on the
operation of scalar thresholds, and in the end only
indirectly resulting from climatic transformations, and
therefore subject to considerable practical variability.
Therefore, while these Holocene changes in strategic
people–land relations can be thought of as climatically
conditioned, it would be inappropriate to dismiss social
agency for specific observed or hypothesised demographic and cultural circumstances, for there are usually
many adaptive choices that people can make, and such
choices are always contingent.
This is precisely what confronts us with the parallel
yet contrasting situation of the New Guinea highlands,
for here people responded to heightened levels of
bioproduction, low climate variability and to human
population increases during the Holocene climatic
optimum by either initiating, or by transforming,
existing horticultural practices and in so-doing radically
enhancing the land’s productivity. After 6000 cal yr BP,
under the influence of increasingly intense and frequent
ENSO activity, further innovation and adaptation was
necessary to sustain crop production in a region
susceptible to severe drought. These innovations set in
motion a different set of demographic possibilities and
restrictions to those conditioned by the adaptive choices
made in Australia, here allowing for population
densities many orders greater than the highest of the
Australian mainland. With this came the diverse and
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characteristically New Guinea societies we have come to
know from ethnography. As was the case in Australia,
in New Guinea it was the early to mid-Holocene climatic
and ensuing environmental transformations that heightened natural biomass production and population
increases, and that in doing so set in course particular
and ongoing dynamic relations between people, and
between people and their surrounding landscapes.
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