Ref ID:	23989
Ref Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Hope, Geoff O'Dea, Dominique Southern, Wendy
Title:	Holocene vegetation histories in the Western Pacific: alternative records of human impact
Date:	1999
Source:	Le Pacifique de 5000 à 2000 avant le présent
Place of Publication:	Paris
Publisher:	Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
Abstract:	Virtually all of the pollen work in the western Pacific has been undertaken to compare pre-human vegetation and landscape processes with those after settlement has occurred. Over fifty pollen diagrams and charcoal records now exist outside Australia and upland New Guinea, most unpublished in any detail. These provide very mixed results in terms of chronology of the balance between natural and anthropogenic influences on vegetation. This paper provides a guide to the sites and their associated literature and discusses them in terms of the type of records provided, based on the kind of archaeological query being made. Relatively few sites provide unproblematic sequences recording human settlement and change to the vegetation. Some are in areas where humans have had little impact, while others have sedimentary breaks or are insufficiently dated. However quite a large number are probably initiated by human settlement and record post-colonisation change. Pollen diagrams thus have a great deal of potential to provide independent histories of human impact, but are not yet ready to provide a coherent picture of the 5000-2000 year period.
Date Created:	11/8/2006
Editors:	Galipaud, Jean-Christophe Lilley, Ian
Page Start:	387
Page End:	404