SEMINAR: Archaeology Seminar Series

Humans modify their ecological niche in many ways, including the use of fire to control, remove or alter faunal or botanical resource availability. Niche modification may be deliberate or incidental, but recognising these interactions is critical to understanding the development of adaptations and responses to environmental change at the level of both the individual and the society. The northern Swan Coastal Plain, in southwestern Australia, provides an ideal study area for the investigation of such behaviours due to the presence of limestone caves with the potential to contain intact archaeological and palaeontological deposits, plentiful fresh water sources, and the relatively undisturbed nature of the vegetation. Although ethnohistorical resources have provided limited insight into resource management strategies within the region, the archaeological signatures of such practices are yet to be identified and understood. Using archaeological and palaeontological material recovered from limestone cave deposits in Yued Noongar country, the research proposed here will investigate the nature and scale of niche constructing behaviours employed by Holocene hunter-gatherers in the northern Swan Coastal Plain, and the ways in which these behaviours influenced ecological communities. By comparing ‘natural’ (non-anthropogenically altered) ecological communities to those containing evidence of human activity, this research will highlight the ways that humans interacted with their ecosystem at both micro- (local) and meso- (community) scales, building on earlier research into and broadening our understanding of mid- and late Holocene human activity in the southwest of Western Australia.