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Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia

Little is known about the Pleistocene climatic context of northern Australia at the time of early human settlement. Here we generate a palaeoprecipitation proxy using stable carbon isotope analysis of modern and archaeological pandanus nutshell from Madjedbebe, Australia’s oldest known archaeologica...

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Autores principales: Florin, S. Anna, Roberts, Patrick, Marwick, Ben, Patton, Nicholas R., Shulmeister, James, Lovelock, Catherine E., Barry, Linda A., Hua, Quan, Nango, May, Djandjomerr, Djaykuk, Fullagar, Richard, Wallis, Lynley A., Fairbairn, Andrew S., Clarkson, Chris
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7929916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33495592
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01379-8
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author Florin, S. Anna
Roberts, Patrick
Marwick, Ben
Patton, Nicholas R.
Shulmeister, James
Lovelock, Catherine E.
Barry, Linda A.
Hua, Quan
Nango, May
Djandjomerr, Djaykuk
Fullagar, Richard
Wallis, Lynley A.
Fairbairn, Andrew S.
Clarkson, Chris
author_facet Florin, S. Anna
Roberts, Patrick
Marwick, Ben
Patton, Nicholas R.
Shulmeister, James
Lovelock, Catherine E.
Barry, Linda A.
Hua, Quan
Nango, May
Djandjomerr, Djaykuk
Fullagar, Richard
Wallis, Lynley A.
Fairbairn, Andrew S.
Clarkson, Chris
author_sort Florin, S. Anna
collection PubMed
description Little is known about the Pleistocene climatic context of northern Australia at the time of early human settlement. Here we generate a palaeoprecipitation proxy using stable carbon isotope analysis of modern and archaeological pandanus nutshell from Madjedbebe, Australia’s oldest known archaeological site. We document fluctuations in precipitation over the last 65,000 years and identify periods of lower precipitation during the penultimate and last glacial stages, Marine Isotope Stages 4 and 2. However, the lowest effective annual precipitation is recorded at the present time. Periods of lower precipitation, including the earliest phase of occupation, correspond with peaks in exotic stone raw materials and artefact discard at the site. This pattern is interpreted as suggesting increased group mobility and intensified use of the region during drier periods.
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spelling pubmed-79299162021-03-19 Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia Florin, S. Anna Roberts, Patrick Marwick, Ben Patton, Nicholas R. Shulmeister, James Lovelock, Catherine E. Barry, Linda A. Hua, Quan Nango, May Djandjomerr, Djaykuk Fullagar, Richard Wallis, Lynley A. Fairbairn, Andrew S. Clarkson, Chris Nat Ecol Evol Article Little is known about the Pleistocene climatic context of northern Australia at the time of early human settlement. Here we generate a palaeoprecipitation proxy using stable carbon isotope analysis of modern and archaeological pandanus nutshell from Madjedbebe, Australia’s oldest known archaeological site. We document fluctuations in precipitation over the last 65,000 years and identify periods of lower precipitation during the penultimate and last glacial stages, Marine Isotope Stages 4 and 2. However, the lowest effective annual precipitation is recorded at the present time. Periods of lower precipitation, including the earliest phase of occupation, correspond with peaks in exotic stone raw materials and artefact discard at the site. This pattern is interpreted as suggesting increased group mobility and intensified use of the region during drier periods. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-01-25 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC7929916/ /pubmed/33495592 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01379-8 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Florin, S. Anna
Roberts, Patrick
Marwick, Ben
Patton, Nicholas R.
Shulmeister, James
Lovelock, Catherine E.
Barry, Linda A.
Hua, Quan
Nango, May
Djandjomerr, Djaykuk
Fullagar, Richard
Wallis, Lynley A.
Fairbairn, Andrew S.
Clarkson, Chris
Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title_full Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title_fullStr Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title_full_unstemmed Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title_short Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia
title_sort pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at madjedbebe, northern australia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7929916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33495592
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01379-8
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