National Museum of Australia

All Australian land mammals, reptiles, and birds weighing more than 100 kilograms, and six of the seven genera with a body mass of 45 to 100 kilograms, perished in the late Quaternary. The timing and causes of these extinctions remain uncertain. We report burial ages for megafauna from 28 sites and infer extinction across the continent around 46,400 years ago (95% confidence interval, 51,200 to 39,800 years ago). Our results rule out extreme aridity at the Last Glacial Maximum as the cause of extinction, but not other climatic impacts; a "blitzkrieg" model of human-induced extinction; or an extended period of anthropogenic ecosystem disruption.

Abstract New dating confirms that people occupied the Australian continent before the earliest time inferred from conventional radiocarbon analysis. Many of the new ages were obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry 14 C dating after an acid–base–acid pretreatment with bulk combustion (ABA-BC) or after a newly developed acid–base–wet oxidation pretreatment with stepped combustion (ABOX-SC). The samples (charcoal) came from the earliest occupation levels of the Devil's Lair site in southwestern Western Australia. Initial occupation of this site was previously dated 35,000 14 C yr B.P. Whereas the ABA-BC ages are indistinguishable from background beyond 42,000 14 C yr B.P., the ABOX-SC ages are in stratigraphic order to ∼55,000 14 C yr B.P. The ABOX-SC chronology suggests that people were in the area by 48,000 cal yr B.P. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), electron spin resonance (ESR) ages, U-series dating of flowstones, and 14 C dating of emu eggshell carbonate are in agreement with the ABOX-SC 14 C chronology. These results, based on four independent techniques, reinforce arguments for early colonization of the Australian continent.

Phylogeographic endemism, the degree to which the history of recently evolved lineages is spatially restricted, reflects fundamental evolutionary processes such as cryptic divergence, adaptation and biological responses to environmental heterogeneity. Attempts to explain the extraordinary diversity of the tropics, which often includes deep phylogeographic structure, frequently invoke interactions of climate variability across space, time and topography. To evaluate historical versus contemporary drivers of phylogeographic endemism in a tropical system, we analyse the effects of current and past climatic variation on the genetic diversity of 25 vertebrates in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest. We identify two divergent bioclimatic domains within the forest and high turnover around the Rio Doce. Independent modelling of these domains demonstrates that endemism patterns are subject to different climatic drivers. Past climate dynamics, specifically areas of relative stability, predict phylogeographic endemism in the north. Conversely, contemporary climatic heterogeneity better explains endemism in the south. These results accord with recent speleothem and fossil pollen studies, suggesting that climatic variability through the last 250 kyr impacted the northern and the southern forests differently. Incorporating sub-regional differences in climate dynamics will enhance our ability to understand those processes shaping high phylogeographic and species endemism, in the Neotropics and beyond.

Abstract The continuing losses of biodiversity around the world remain problematic for nature conservation. A fundamental issue that has triggered debates in nature conservation is the relationship between human culture, heritage and history, and nature expressed as ecology or biodiversity. Traditionally, nature conservation has been pursued separately from aspects of cultural heritage; a situation which seems perplexing when we consider the importance of traditional management in the maintenance of biodiversity in many areas now ‘protected’ for nature. To address these broad issues, fundamental to future landscape sustainability, we need to have clear definitions of concepts and terms. This paper considers the historical development of the key concepts that frame biocultural diversity and the paradigms relating to biocultural assets or eco‐cultural landscapes. This is pertinent to both researchers and to practitioners or policymakers, and we suggest ways biocultural diversity can improve global conservation efforts. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Today, for the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. According to UN-Habitat, within two decades, five billion people will live in cities. Coincidentally, within the field of cultural heritage conservation, increasing international interest and attention over the past two decades has been focused on urban areas. This is timely because pressure for economic development and for the prioritising of engagement with the global economy has accompanied rapid urbanisation. In many societies, pressures for economic development have privileged modernisation efforts leading to the loss of traditional communities. Accompanying this has been a concentration in the field of urban conservation on famous buildings and monuments rather than seeing cities as communities of people with values and belief systems that are reflected in the city’s overall setting: its cultural landscape. This paper explores alternative ways of seeing cities particularly through the Historic Urban Landscape paradigm.

In recent years an interest in ‘critical heritage studies’ (CHS) has grown significantly – its differentiation from ‘heritage studies’ rests on its emphasis of cultural heritage as a political, cultural, and social phenomenon. But how original or radical are the concepts and aims of CHS, and why has it apparently become useful or meaningful to talk about critical heritage studies as opposed to simply ‘heritage studies’? Focusing on the canon of the 1980s and 1990s heritage scholarship – and in particular the work of the ‘father of heritage studies’, David Lowenthal – this article offers a historiographical analysis of traditional understandings and approaches to heritage, and the various explanations behind the post-WWII rise of heritage in western culture. By placing this analysing within the wider frames of post-war historical studies and the growth of scholarly interest in memory, the article seeks to highlight the limitations and bias of the much of the traditional heritage canon, and in turn frame the rationale for the critical turn in heritage studies.

Nostalgia for some is pointless and sentimental, for others reactionary and futile. Where does that leave those of us interested in labour history and heritage – is it all just ‘smokestack nostalgia’? Using interviews with visitors, volunteers and staff at sites and museums of industrial and working class heritage in England, the United States and Australia, we argue that a useful distinction can be made between ‘reactionary nostalgia’ and ‘progressive nostalgia’, and that a ‘nostalgia for the future’ can emerge from memories and memorialisations. Drawing on the past can help mould the sentiments and nurture the emotional commitment to social justice issues the Left so desperately needs.

Desert Peoples: Archaeological Perspectives provides an issues-oriented overview of hunter-gatherer societies in desert landscapes that combines archaeological and anthropological perspectives and includes a wide range of regional and thematic case studies. • Brings together, for the first time, studies from deserts as diverse as the sand dunes of Australia, the U.S. Great Basin, the coastal and high altitude deserts of South America, and the core deserts of Africa • Examines the key concepts vital to understanding human adaptation to marginal landscapes and the behavioral and belief systems that underpin them • Explores the relationship among desert hunter-gatherers, herders, and pastoralists.

This is the first book-length study of the archaeology of Australia's deserts, one of the world's major habitats and the largest block of drylands in the southern hemisphere. Over the last few decades, a wealth of new environmental and archaeological data about this fascinating region has become available. Drawing on a wide range of sources, The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts explores the late Pleistocene settlement of Australia's deserts, the formation of distinctive desert societies, and the origins and development of the hunter-gatherer societies documented in the classic nineteenth-century ethnographies of Spencer and Gillen. Written by one of Australia's leading desert archaeologists, the book interweaves a lively history of research with archaeological data in a masterly survey of the field and a profoundly interdisciplinary study that forces archaeology into conversations with history and anthropology, economy and ecology, and geography and Earth sciences.

Human preferences, practices and actions are the main drivers of global environmental change in the 21st century. It is crucial, therefore, to promote pro-environmental behavior. In order to accomplish this, we need to move beyond rational choice and behavioral decision theories, which do not capture the full range of commitments, assumptions, imaginaries, and belief systems that drive those preferences and actions. Humanities disciplines, such as philosophy, history, religious studies, gender studies, language and literary studies, psychology, and pedagogics do offer deep insights into human motivations, values, and choices. We believe that the expertise of such fields for transforming human preferences, practices and actions is ignored at society’s peril. We propose an agenda that focuses global humanities research on stepping up to the challenges of planetary environmental change. We have established Environmental Humanities Observatories through which to observe, explore and enact the crucial ways humanistic disciplines may help us understand and engage with global ecological problems by providing insight into human action, perceptions, and motivation. We present this Manifesto as an invitation for others to join the “Humanities for the Environment” open global consortium of humanities observatories as we continue to develop a shared research agenda.

Summary Fission-track dating of zircons and apatites from tuffs and bentonites has produced the first isotopic ages for the type sections of the Ordovician and Silurian Systems. In the Ordovician the following ages have been determined: lower Arenig 493 Ma, lower Llanvirn 487 Ma, lower Llandeilo 477 Ma, upper Caradoc 463 Ma and upper Ashgill 434 Ma. In the Silurian, the following: lower Llandovery 437 Ma, lower Wenlock 422 Ma, upper Wenlock 414 Ma and Ludlow 407 Ma. The Ordovician-Silurian boundary is interpreted as occurring at about 436 Ma. Three North American Rocklandian bentonites yielded zircons whose ages average 453 Ma. This is about 10 Ma younger than supposedly correlative units in the British type sections.

Abstract Aim Anthropogenic introductions of Australian Acacia spp. that become classed as alien invasive species have consequences besides the physical, spatial and ecological: there are also cultural, ethical and political considerations that demand attention from scholars in the humanities and social sciences. As practitioners in these disciplines, our aim is to reflect upon some of the social and conceptual ideas and attitudes relating to the spread of Australian Acacia spp. around the world. We therefore provide a longer‐term historical and philosophical perspective using South Africa as a key example. We explain some of the cultural aspects of Australian acacias, relating them to history, philosophy and societal ideas that were once, or indeed remain, important, either regarding their exportation from Australia or their importation into other countries. Focussing principally on South Africa and Australia but including brief references to other locations, we augment the literature by making connections between acacia introductions and environmental ethics and aesthetics, national and environmental history and symbolic and other discourses. We evaluate a number of the cultural and philosophical dimensions of invasion biology as a societal response and explicate the interesting contradiction of Australian acacia introductions as simultaneously economically valuable and environmentally transformative in South Africa. Location South Africa, Australia, with references to other parts of the world. Methods This paper has been written by an interdisciplinary team (two historians, two geographers, a philosopher and an ecologist) and is conceptual and historical, conforming in language and structure to the humanities style. It relies on published and unpublished literature from this disciplinary domain and the critical evaluation of these sources. Results Many Acacia spp. from Australia have been introduced around the world, generally guided in different eras by a variety of overarching mindsets, including the colonial ethos of ‘improvement’ (1800s to mid 1900s), an economically driven mindset of ‘national development’ (1900s), by a people‐centred frame combining concerns of environment and livelihood in ‘sustainable development’ (1980s onwards), and an aesthetic ethos of ornamental planting that surfaces in all periods. The newest ethos of controlling or managing alien invasive species, a normative attitude deriving from the burgeoning of invasion biology, has more recently shaped the ideology of these plant exchanges and sharpened the focus on species that may be simultaneously both weeds and commercially valuable crops. Our perspective from the humanities and social sciences calls for a more transparent approach that clearly acknowledges such contradictions. Main conclusions We conclude that the global experiment of human‐mediated Australian acacia introductions raises a number of issues that reflect changing societal concerns and demand attention from scholars in disciplines apart from the natural sciences. Here we highlight the impact of historical context in plant exchanges, the history and philosophy of science as it relates to invasion biology, and changing – sometimes divisive – societal priorities in terms of aesthetic, economic and conservation values. In particular, the case of Acacia spp. in South Africa highlights the contradictory aspects of introductions in that some species are both commercially important and environment‐altering invasive plants. We argue that the contribution of disciplines beyond ecology to the debates about the invasive status of acacias enlarges our understanding and provides useful insights for botanists, foresters, managers and policy makers.

Adaptive radiations play key roles in the generation of biodiversity and biological novelty, and therefore understanding the factors that drive them remains one of the most important challenges of evolutionary biology. Although both intrinsic innovations and extrinsic ecological opportunities contribute to diversification bursts, few studies have looked at the synergistic effect of such factors. Here we investigate the Teloschistales (Ascomycota), a group of >1,000 lichenized species with variation in species richness and phenotypic traits that hinted at a potential adaptive radiation. We found evidence for a dramatic increase in diversification rate for one of four families within this order--Teloschistaceae--which occurred ∼ 100 Mya (Late Cretaceous) and was associated with a switch from bark to rock and from shady to sun-exposed habitats. This adaptation to sunny habitats is likely to have been enabled by a contemporaneous key novel phenotypic innovation: the production in both vegetative structure (thallus) and fruiting body (apothecia) of anthraquinones, secondary metabolites known to protect against UV light. We found that the two ecological factors (sun exposure and rock substrate) and the phenotypic innovation (anthraquinones in the thallus) were all significant when testing for state-dependent shifts in diversification rates, and together they seem likely to be responsible for the success of the Teloschistaceae, one of the largest lichen-forming fungal lineages. Our results support the idea that adaptive radiations are driven not by a single factor or key innovation, but require a serendipitous combination of both intrinsic biotic and extrinsic abiotic and ecological factors.

Exploratory time-series analysis of radiocarbon data from archaeological contexts is used to reconstruct the population history of arid Australia, allowing this to be read in concert with records of climatic variability over the last 20 000 years. Probability distribution plots of 971 radiocarbon ages from 286 sites in five dryland regions (the arid west coast, Pilbara and Murchison, Nullarbor, arid interior and the southeastern arid zone) provide a proxy record of prehistoric population fluctuations in these areas. There is regional variation, but the radiocarbon density plots suggest a step-wise pattern of population growth and expansion, with significant thresholds at 19, 8 and 1.5 cal. kyr BP. Within this, the plots suggest a saw-tooth pattern of rapid population growth and decline on a 1—3 kyr frequency, with a marked collapse of dryland hunter-gatherer populations around 3—2.5 cal. kyr BP affecting most regions. Comparison with climate data shows broad correlations with past temperature and rainfall variability, sea-level change and ENSO activity, but the interaction of prehistoric populations and these environmental changes is not well resolved. High amplitude environmental changes appear to have triggered stadial changes in population, rather than smooth transitions. Dryland populations may also have become more sensitive to small environmental changes in the late Holocene, as population density increased. A large increase in population around 1.5 cal. kyr BP is associated with small changes in regional palaeoecology, which are not otherwise represented in palaeoclimatic data sets. Spectral analysis identifies two cyclical periodicities of 1340 and 175 years within the population histories, also suggesting responses to millennial and submillennial climatic variability, a pattern most marked in the late Holocene.

Abstract Global history has become the business of more than just historians. This paper explores the history of scientific historiography, particularly a recent initiative of the Global Change community to write an Integrated History and future Of People on Earth (IHOPE). A new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, has been declared, reflecting the scientific fact that anthropogenic change is now shaping planetary systems. Describing changes to the Earth system over time demands understanding of the history of the biophysical factors, the human factors and their integration. While global warming has motivated the recent initiative to write global history, the global atomic era also provided an incentive for scientists to write global history, as was revealed in the 1940s UNESCO initiatives for a Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind and an International Union for the History of Science. We review recent developments in world and environmental historiography, and popular ‘millennial’ projects, such as the Clock of the Long Now, to identify potential common interests between historians and non‐historians writing world history at very different scales, and for different audiences.

There is little evidence for the role of plant foods in the dispersal of early modern humans into new habitats globally. Researchers have hypothesised that early movements of human populations through Island Southeast Asia and into Sahul were driven by the lure of high-calorie, low-handling-cost foods, and that the use of plant foods requiring processing was not common in Sahul until the Holocene. Here we present the analysis of charred plant food remains from Madjedbebe rockshelter in northern Australia, dated to between 65 kya and 53 kya. We demonstrate that Australia's earliest known human population exploited a range of plant foods, including those requiring processing. Our finds predate existing evidence for such subsistence practices in Sahul by at least 23ky. These results suggest that dietary breadth underpinned the success of early modern human populations in this region, with the expenditure of labour on the processing of plants guaranteeing reliable access to nutrients in new environments.

Abstract Sum probability analysis of 1275 radiometric ages from 608 archaeological sites across northern and central Australia demonstrates a changing archaeological signature that can be closely correlated with climate variability over the last 2 ka. Results reveal a marked increase in archaeological records across northern and central Australia over the last 2 ka, with notable declines in western and northern Australia between ca. AD 700 and 1000 and post‐AD 1500 – two periods broadly coeval with the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and the Little Ice Age as they have been documented in the Asia–Pacific region. Latitudinal and longitudinal analysis of the dataset suggests the increase in archaeological footprint was continent wide, while the declines were greatest from 9 to 20° S, 110 to 135° E and 143 to 150° E. The change in the archaeological data suggests that, combined with an increase in population over the late Holocene, a disruption or reorganisation of pre‐European resource systems occurred across Australia between ca. AD 700 and 1000 and post‐AD 1500. These archaeological responses can be broadly correlated with transitions of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) mean state on a multi‐decadal to centennial timescale. The latter involve a shift towards the La Niña‐like mean state with wetter conditions in the Australian region between AD 700 and 1150. A transition period in ENSO mean state occurred across Australia during AD 1150–1300, with persistent El Niño‐like and drier conditions to ca. AD 1500, and increasing ENSO variability post‐AD 1500 to the present. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract In 2000, Paul Crutzen proposed that the Earth had entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, where humanity is changing planetary systems. Since this time, the Anthropocene has figured prominently (and controversially) in global change science, and increasingly in the humanities. The Anthropocene offers a new way to regard humanity, and provides a locus for a new planetary discourse of our times. This short reflective paper suggests a role for history in understanding the different expertise favoured to manage Earth's resources and global change. The discussion focuses on an anthology of historical documents about global change science, The Future of Nature, using this as a ‘worked example’ of history in action.

Although the temporal overlap between human dispersal across Australia and the disappearance of its largest animals is well established, the lack of unambiguous evidence for human-megafauna interactions has led some to question a human role in megafaunal extinction. Here we show that diagnostic burn patterns on eggshell fragments of the megafaunal bird Genyornis newtoni, found at >200 sites across Australia, were created by humans discarding eggshell in and around transient fires, presumably made to cook the eggs. Dating by three methods restricts their occurrence to between 53.9 and 43.4 ka, and likely before 47 ka. Dromaius (emu) eggshell occur frequently in deposits from >100 ka to present; burnt Dromaius eggshell first appear in deposits the same age as those with burnt Genyornis eggshell, and then continually to modern time. Harvesting of their eggs by humans would have decreased Genyornis reproductive success, contributing to the bird's extinction by ∼47 ka.

A comparison of archaeological data in the Atacama Desert and Australian arid zone shows the impact of the El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the last 5,000 years. Using a dataset of > 1400 radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites across the two regions as a proxy for population change, we develop radiocarbon density plots, which are then used to explore the responses of these prehistoric populations to ENSO climatic variability. Under an ENSO regime, precipitation is in anti-phase between Australia and coastal Chile. As ENSO also impacts marine resource productivity in Chile and advection of moisture from the Amazon Basin, the net effects of ENSO on subsistence economies on either side of the Tropical Pacific should be positively correlated. This is confirmed by cross-spectral analysis of the radiocarbon density plots, which shows that population responses on either side of the Tropical Pacific are synchronous (r = > 0.82). Both the Australian and Atacama desert records show a general increase in population from about 13 cal kyr BP, increasing through the mid-Holocene climatic optimum. Following the intensification of ENSO around 3.7 cal kyr BP, we can correlate 'boom and bust' cycles of occupation on both sides of the Pacific, including the collapse of the Atacama desert coastal economy and cultural system at 3 cal kyr BP and the decline of both the Atacama highlands and Central Australian dryland populations between 3-2 cal kyr BP. After 2 cal kyr BP adaptive responses to ENSO varied between these regions, though all dryland populations show resurgence in occupation.