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We used this digital elevation model to understand what was visible to early travellers. Essentially, from each point in the continent we asked “what can you see from here?” This moving window calculates the largest “viewshed” map ever created. When our virtual travellers move, they reorient based on visible terrain everywhere they go. The figure above shows the prominence of features across the continent as increasingly yellow shades against the blue background.
You can clearly make out features such as the the New Guinea Highlands, the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the Great Dividing Range in the east, and the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Modelling the ‘superhighways’ travelled by First Australians
New mapping of landscapes and populations sheds light on the peopling of Australia.
Map showing the Indigenous superhighways of ancient Australia. Credit: Megan Hotchkiss Davidson/Sandia National Laboratories, Zoe Taylor, CABAH
Indigenous Australians have long pointed out that their ancestors have lived on and cared for this continent since time immemorial. Hampered by entrenched misconceptions and outdated curricula, it’s only in recent decades – with discoveries like Mungo Man and Mungo Lady – that science has started to catch up.
A new study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) has attempted to map the peopling of Australia by using a simulation model. The model ran more than 120 scenarios to predict population sizes and growth rates on the mega-continent of Sahul, which joined Australia and New Guinea before sea levels rose.
About this Event
Reading landscapes: tracing the nature of being human through the palaeoecology of extinction, domestication, translocation and invasion
Abstract
Humans are a geologically recent phenomenon that have had a profound influence on the global environment. The magnitude, variety and longevity of human-induced changes, including extinction, domestication, translocation and invasion have transformed the
landscapes we live in today – though often in unexpected and surprising ways. Using the science (and art) of palaeoecology we are able to read landscape history through the lens of microscopic remains preserved in sedimentary archives, opening a window into the nature of human behaviour and our interactions with the environment through time. Here I will discuss some of the most recent debates in which palaeoecology has played a significant role in challenging our understanding of the nature and timing of human impacts in our region, including (i) the causes o
Attack of the alien invaders
Pest plants and animals leave a frightening $1.7 trillion bill.
Credit: Jason Jones Travel Photography / Getty Images
They’re one of the most damaging environmental forces on Earth. They’ve colonised pretty much every place humans have set foot on the planet. Yet you might not even know they exist.
We’re talking about alien species. Not little green extraterrestrials, but invasive plants and animals not native to an ecosystem and which become pests. They might be plants from South America, starfish from Africa, insects from Europe or birds from Asia.
Yellow crazy ants, such as these attacking a gecko, are among thousands of invasive species causing ecological and economic havoc. Credit: Dinakarr, CC0, Wikimedia Commons