Preliminary Chemical Fossil Assessment of Mid to Late Holocene Environment and Human-Forest Dynamics on the North Coast of New Guinea

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological interest in environmental and human impacts on society and ecosystems has intensified, with mounting evidence of global anthropogenic climate change and landscape modification. Tropical lowland forests, once believed to represent pristine ecologies only marginally impacted by human activity, are now understood to reflect millennia of human management. Here, we report on a preliminary application of chemical fossil (organic biomarker) analyses to cored sediments from the Aitape area of northern New Guinea, covering the period from ~6000 to 2000 BP. Analysis of charcoal from these cores suggests significant changes in forest management, including evidence for periods increased forest clearance and burning relative to present practices. However, the relative impacts of mid-Holocene temperature variability, shifting rainfall regimes, and changes in human activities are poorly understood, owing to lack of more traditional proxy preservation, including pollen. We analyze chemical biomarkers to assess (a) fluctuations in rainfall levels linked to diachronic variations in temperature and the ENSO cycle, (b) changes in forest composition and local ecology, and (c) impacts of human activity including burning and how horticultural and other activities contributed to changing forest composition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37442.0