Over 41,000 Years Ago, Ancient Tasmanians Used Fire To Manipulate Their Environment, And Mud Helped Uncover This
Over 41,000 years ago, the first inhabitants of Tasmania used fire to modify and manage the landscape.
The occurrence is the earliest record of humans using fire to manipulate the Tasmanian environment. It predates previous estimates by about 2,000 years.
A team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Australia conducted an analysis of charcoal and pollen found in ancient mud to come to this conclusion.
Around 41,600 years ago, there was a sudden increase in charcoal that happened at the same time as a change in vegetation, suggesting that Aboriginal Tasmanians used fire to shape their surroundings. They cleared dense, wet forests to create open spaces for their own activities.
During the early part of the last ice age, early human migrations from Africa to the southern area of the globe were already taking place. Humans reached northern Australia around 65,000 years ago.
When the first Palawa/Pakana (Tasmanian Indigenous) communities arrived in Tasmania, it was the furthest south that humans had ever settled.
These early communities used fire to alter the landscape, as evidenced by charcoal in the ancient mud.
The mud was taken from islands in the Bass Strait, which is now a part of Tasmania. But back then, it would have been part of the land bridge that connected Australia and Tasmania during the last ice age.
The land bridge allowed humans to reach Tasmania on foot. It remained until about 8,000 years ago when rising sea levels separated Tasmania from the rest of Australia.
Alex – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only – pictured above is a view of Tasmania
“Australia is home to the world’s oldest Indigenous culture, which has endured for over 50,000 years,” said Dr. Matthew Adeleye, the lead author of the study from Cambridge’s Department of Geography.
“Earlier studies have shown that Aboriginal communities on the Australian mainland used fire to shape their habitats, but we haven’t had similarly detailed environmental records for Tasmania.”
When the researchers studied the ancient mud, they found increased levels of charcoal around 41,600 years ago, followed by a major change in vegetation about 40,000 years ago, as indicated by various types of pollen.
Clearly, fire was a vital tool for the Palawa/Pakana communities. They used it to transform their surroundings, promoting the type of landscape or vegetation that was most important to them.
It is likely that humans learned how to use fire to clear forests during their migration across Sahul, a paleocontinent that consisted of modern-day Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and eastern Indonesia.
“As natural habitats adapted to these controlled burnings, we see the expansion of fire-adapted species, such as Eucalyptus, primarily on the wetter, eastern side of the Bass Strait islands,” Adeleye said.
Today, burning techniques are still practiced by Aboriginal communities in Australia, usually for landscape management and cultural activities.
The researchers believe that the results of their study help improve our understanding of how humans have been shaping the environment for thousands of years, which, in turn, could help restore the land in Australia today.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
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