Prehistoric aboriginal impacts on australian vegetation: An assessment of the evidence

Abstract

To what extent were Australian vegetation patterns in 1788 a product of human activity? Pollen and charcoal evidence which addresses this question is reviewed. I discuss the nature of the evidence, particularly the difficulties involved in establishing relationships between charcoal and fire history, and between fire history and human activity. I then address the broader question from the perspectives of both time and space by examining three key periods which might be expected to provide relevant evidence: (i) the time of initial human colonisation of the continent; (ii) the late Holocene, when Aboriginal population densities are thought to have increased substantially; and (iii) the last 2..