The changing environments of the past 50,000 years in the Australian region provide keys to understanding modern landscape, ecological and human processes.

This course covers the topics of:

• Reviewing these environmental changes techniques commonly used to provide a reconstruction of the past ecology, climate, and surface processes.
• The source of sedimentary archives and proxy records requires landscape assessments and skills in a range of geomorphological and chronological methods.
• Biological techniques to be studied include:
• Analyses of pollen
• Charcoal
• Wood
• Seeds
• Insects
• Stable isotopes
• Biogenic silica
• The contribution of these techniques to particular prehistoric problems such as detecting the role of human activity in environmental change is also covered.

Note: Graduate students attend joint classes with undergraduates but will be assessed separately.

Essay (20%)

Test (25%)

Class project work on a Quaternary site (50%)

Together with participation in seminars (5%)

Bradley, R.S. Holton, J. and Dmowska R. 1999. Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary. San Diego, Academic Press, 2nd ed.

Head, L. 2000.  Cultural landscapes and environmental change London : Arnold ; New York : Oxford University Press.

Williams, M.A. J., Dunkerley, D.L., DeDeckker. P., Kershaw, A.P. and Chappell J. M.A. 1998. Quaternary Environments. 2nd ed. London, Edward Arnold.

Associated programs: Environmental and Human Histories, Geoecology and Archaeology.