Browsing by Author "Steinberger, L"

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    Environmental context for late holocene human occupation of the South Wellesley Archipelago, Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia
    (Elsevier, 2015-10-22) Moss, PT; Mackenzie, LL; Ulm, S; Sloss, CR; Rosendahl, D; Petherick, LM; Steinberger, L; Wallis, LA; Heijnis, H; Petchey, F; Jacobsen, GE
    A 2400 year record of environmental change is reported from a wetland on Bentinck Island in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. Three phases of wetland development are identified, with a protected coastal setting from ca. 2400 to 500 years ago, transitioning into an estuarine mangrove forest from ca. 500 years ago to the 1940s, and finally to a freshwater swamp over the past +60 years. This sequence reflects the influence of falling sea-levels, development of a coastal dune barrier system, prograding shorelines, and an extreme storm (cyclone) event. In addition, there is clear evidence of the impacts that human abandonment and resettlement have on the island's fire regimes and vegetation. A dramatic increase in burning and vegetation thickening was observed after the cessation of traditional Indigenous Kaiadilt fire management practices in the 1940s, and was then reversed when people returned to the island in the 1980s. In terms of the longer context for human occupation of the South Wellesley Archipelago, it is apparent that the mangrove phase provided a stable and productive environment that was conducive for human settlement of this region over the past 1000 years. © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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    Mid-Holocene Aboriginal occupation of offshore islands in northern Australia? A reassessment of Wurdukanhan, Mornington Island, southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia
    (Elsevier, 2015-10) Rosendahl, D; Ulm, S; Sloss, CR; Steinberger, L; Petchey, F; Jacobsen, GE; Stock, E; Robins, RA
    Claims for mid-Holocene Aboriginal occupation at the shell matrix site of Wurdukanhan, Mornington Island, Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, are reassessed through an analysis of the excavated assemblage coupled with new surveys and an extensive dating program. Memmott et al. (2006, pp. 38, 39) reported basal ages of c.5000-5500 years from Wurdukanhan as 'the oldest date yet obtained for any archaeological site on the coast of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria' and used these dates to argue for 'a relatively lengthy occupation since at least the mid-Holocene'. If substantiated, with the exception of western Torres Strait, these claims make Mornington Island the only offshore island used across northern Australia in the mid-Holocene where it is conventionally thought that Aboriginal people only (re)colonised islands after sea-level maximum was achieved after the mid-Holocene. Our analysis of Wurdukanhan demonstrates high shellfish taxa diversity, high rates of natural shell predation and high densities of foraminifera throughout the deposit demonstrating a natural origin for the assemblage. Results are considered in the context of other dated shell matrix sites in the area and a geomorphological model for landscape development of the Sandalwood River catchment. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.