Establishing baseline ecological conditions for the Lower Lakes, South Australia: the applications of palaeoecology to sustainable resource management. The Lower Lakes of the Murray River are in a critical ecological state due to record low water levels. Management of these lakes needs to integrate water security demands with maintaining healthy ecosystem functions. Proposed management options such as allowing seawater incursion and the construction of a weir to impede freshwater flows are based ....Establishing baseline ecological conditions for the Lower Lakes, South Australia: the applications of palaeoecology to sustainable resource management. The Lower Lakes of the Murray River are in a critical ecological state due to record low water levels. Management of these lakes needs to integrate water security demands with maintaining healthy ecosystem functions. Proposed management options such as allowing seawater incursion and the construction of a weir to impede freshwater flows are based on assumptions about what the Lakes were like naturally (pre-European). This study will reconstruct environmental variability within the Lower Lakes over the past 7000 years, concentrating on salinity to document the extent of marine incursion, and pH to examine the impacts of acid sulphate release from exposed sediments during low flow events. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100703
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$346,536.00
Summary
The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the d ....The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the degree of behavioural response to environmental change. This project aims to apply novel geophysical and geochemical techniques to provide new climate records for Indonesia and South Africa, facilitate correlation with other climate archives and thus create a means of directly evaluating the degree of environmental influence on human behavioural evolution.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE170100177
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$290,000.00
Summary
A regional optical dating facility in Australia. This project aims to establish an open access, end-user friendly optical dating facility in Australia. This will address shortcomings in the capacity and geographical coverage of the existing national geochronology infrastructure and enable Australian researchers to reconstruct past records of climate change, human evolution, ecological vulnerabilities, natural and man-made hazards and environmental disturbance over historical to near-million-year ....A regional optical dating facility in Australia. This project aims to establish an open access, end-user friendly optical dating facility in Australia. This will address shortcomings in the capacity and geographical coverage of the existing national geochronology infrastructure and enable Australian researchers to reconstruct past records of climate change, human evolution, ecological vulnerabilities, natural and man-made hazards and environmental disturbance over historical to near-million-year timeframes. This project is expected to increase commercial demand for geoscience services and lead to better understanding of Australia’s natural heritage and its long-term vulnerabilities.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100743
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$388,496.00
Summary
Luminescence dating of Middle Pleistocene human histories in Europe. This project aims to ascertain the timing, context and nature of early human evolution and associated cultural turnovers in southern Europe using cutting-edge dating techniques. The project plans to use recent advances in extended-range luminescence dating to establish unequivocal, multifaceted chronologies for a comprehensive range of human fossil and stone tool sites from the Iberian Peninsula. The outcomes of this project ar ....Luminescence dating of Middle Pleistocene human histories in Europe. This project aims to ascertain the timing, context and nature of early human evolution and associated cultural turnovers in southern Europe using cutting-edge dating techniques. The project plans to use recent advances in extended-range luminescence dating to establish unequivocal, multifaceted chronologies for a comprehensive range of human fossil and stone tool sites from the Iberian Peninsula. The outcomes of this project are expected to advance our understanding of early human history by providing a critical temporal reappraisal of modelled hominin evolutionary relationships, determining the mode and tempo of cultural turnovers, and unravelling how past human populations responded to major climate change and environmental pressures.Read moreRead less
A 140,000 year insight into the imprint of climate and humans on Australia. Before the arrival of Europeans, two events shaped Australia's current landscapes and biota more than any others: climate change during the glacial cycle and the arrival of humans on the continent. However, the full scale of these events is not well understood. High resolution analyses of two continuous 140 000 year old sediment deposits will be used in this project to fill this void and answer fundamental questions abou ....A 140,000 year insight into the imprint of climate and humans on Australia. Before the arrival of Europeans, two events shaped Australia's current landscapes and biota more than any others: climate change during the glacial cycle and the arrival of humans on the continent. However, the full scale of these events is not well understood. High resolution analyses of two continuous 140 000 year old sediment deposits will be used in this project to fill this void and answer fundamental questions about how current Australian environments came to be.Read moreRead less
Early human dispersal: identifying the key environmental drivers. This project aims to investigate if environmental or human evolutionary processes drove the dispersal of early humans eastwards from Africa into Southeast Asia—and beyond into Australia. The project will examine archaeological sediments using an Earth-science approach, providing direct links between cultural and environmental records. The project will reveal the types of environment that were favored by early humans and provide a ....Early human dispersal: identifying the key environmental drivers. This project aims to investigate if environmental or human evolutionary processes drove the dispersal of early humans eastwards from Africa into Southeast Asia—and beyond into Australia. The project will examine archaeological sediments using an Earth-science approach, providing direct links between cultural and environmental records. The project will reveal the types of environment that were favored by early humans and provide a greater understanding of the role of environmental change on the colonisation of new environments. Read moreRead less
Early African woodworking and tool use at the transition to modern humans. Our archaeological excavations and preliminary dating of Amanzi Springs (South Africa) to between 515,000 and 163,000 years ago shows that the site covers a critical time period that led to the origins of our species, Homo sapiens. Amanzi documents, in never before seen resolution, the technological leaps that our ancestors made during this transition. At ~400,000 years ago this includes the oldest evidence for woodworkin ....Early African woodworking and tool use at the transition to modern humans. Our archaeological excavations and preliminary dating of Amanzi Springs (South Africa) to between 515,000 and 163,000 years ago shows that the site covers a critical time period that led to the origins of our species, Homo sapiens. Amanzi documents, in never before seen resolution, the technological leaps that our ancestors made during this transition. At ~400,000 years ago this includes the oldest evidence for woodworking and tool use and >163,000 years ago the oldest heat treatment of rock to make stone tools. The organic preservation at the site means that we can reconstruct changing environment, linked to sea level changes and spring activity, for this period in the evolution of our ancestors at a level of detail not previously possibleRead moreRead less
ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. The ARC Centre of Excellence of Australian Biodiversity and Heritage will create a world-class interdisciplinary research programme to understand Australia’s unique biodiversity and heritage. The Centre will track the changes to Australia’s environment to examine the processes responsible for the changes and the lessons that can be used to continue to adapt to Australia’s changing environment. The Centre will support connection ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. The ARC Centre of Excellence of Australian Biodiversity and Heritage will create a world-class interdisciplinary research programme to understand Australia’s unique biodiversity and heritage. The Centre will track the changes to Australia’s environment to examine the processes responsible for the changes and the lessons that can be used to continue to adapt to Australia’s changing environment. The Centre will support connections between the sciences and humanities and train future generations of researchers to deal with future global challenges and inform policy in an interdisciplinary context. Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100141
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$420,000.00
Summary
High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality c ....High-resolution ITRAX XRF core scanning facility for global change research. This facility will enable researchers to obtain high-resolution geochemical profiles in the study of environmental change and climate variability. It will provide archive data on the variation of density and chemical element composition along sediment and soil cores, rock cores, wood samples, speleothems and corals. These archives contain important information such as human activity, climate variability, water quality changes, pollution histories, recent geomorphological change, land-use change, introduction of invasive species and the occurrence of bushfires. A better understanding of the occurrence and timing of these major environmental issues is of national and regional importance.Read moreRead less