Australian Climate Change in the Last 50,000 years Essay -- Climate We

Who were the first settlers of Australia and when did they arrive? Both questions have yet to be answered definitively. The most common view is that the Aborigenes ancestors came from southeast Asia more than 50,000 years ago (50,000 BP). That date is based on a few sites in northern Australia where thermoluminescence-datinga technique for determining the time at which material was formed by measuring the light energy released when heating itwas used. Because a comparatively greater number of sites have been radiocarbon-dated to around 40,000 BP, ho we ver, some researchers have come to uncertainness the accuracy of the thermoluminescence technique (indeed, thermoluminescence dating of the Jinmium site in the Northern Territory improbably suggested human settlement as early as 120,000 BP). Given the dating-tools currently at the disposal of the natural sciences, the saftest bet is to infer that the first human population likely arrived in Australia somewhere bet we en 40,000 and 5 0,000 yeas ago (www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Australia). genius point on which there is no disagreement is that the first settlers most likely arrived during the earths last glacial period when cooler temperatures and change magnitude glaciation lent to oceanic recession. Because the lo we red sea level effectively created great stretches of dry dry land almost linking Australia to Asia , it facilitated the migration of peoples to the Australian continent (Lamb, 112). Admittedly, there do count to have remained some open water straits which the people somehow managed to cross, but the majority most likely traveled by land (112). One stretch of level terrain, for example, actually joined Australia with New Guinea and enabled humans to walk into Australia for thousands of... ...adal time scales. Its ecosystems contain a large proportion of endemical (solely Australian) species, reflecting their long evolutionary history and isolation from other landmassesexcept during the last glacial period (www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/pubs/chapter1.pdf). While its population of 20 jillion is still concentrated on the continents coast, this is a different coastline than that on which early settlers made homes for themselves 40,000 years ago moreover, since the period of British colonization, it is a different population too. BibliographyLamb, H.H. Climate, History, and the Modern World. 2 nd ed. New York Routeledge, 1995.www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/pubs/chapter1.pdfwww.rsphysee.anu.edu.au/nuclear/news_events/mediarelease1.pdfwww.wikipedia.com/wiki/Australiawww.wrc.wa.gov.au/srt/publications/landscape/resource/climate.html