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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Environmental: Wildfires

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New research has revealed that the process of 'peopling' the entire continent of Sahul -- the combined mega continent that joined Australia with New Guinea when sea levels were much lower than today -- took 10,000 years. Sophisticated models show the scale of the challenges faced by the ancestors of Indigenous people making their mass migration across the supercontinent more than 60,000 years ago. This pattern led to a rapid expansion both southward toward the Great Australian Bight, and northward from the Kimberley region to settle all parts of New Guinea and, later, the southwest and southeast of Australia.

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A research team examined what happens to mountain snowpacks when sunny, midwinter dry spells occur in forests impacted by severe wildfire.

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Between 2010 and 2020, human ignitions started 76% of the Western wildfires that destroyed structures, and those fires tended to be in flammable areas where buildings are increasingly common. Three times as many homes and other structures burned in these ten years than in the previous decade.

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A new conceptual framework for incorporating the way plants use carbon and water, or plant dynamics, into fine-scale computer models of wildland fire provides a critical first step toward improved global fire forecasting.

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While communities and governments nationwide have been facing the impact of wildfires on drinking water systems, no national synthesis of scientific and policy needs has been conducted. Now, a study has outlined the scientific and policy needs specific to drinking water systems' resilience to wildfires.

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High-severity wildfire in California's Sierra Nevada forests has nearly quintupled compared to before Euro-American settlement, rising from less than 10% per year then to up to 43% today, a new study finds.

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Seeking to better understand more about the origins and movement of bubonic plague, in ancient and contemporary times, researchers have completed a painstaking granular examination of hundreds of modern and ancient genome sequences, creating the largest analysis of its kind.

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Neanderthals in Combe-Grenal (France) preferred to hunt in open environments, and their hunting strategies did not alter during periods of climatic change, according to a new study.

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Five years after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, researchers document persistent differences in cognitive function among survivors.

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Seasonal temperature, moisture loss from plants and wind speed are what primarily drive fires that sweep across the same landscape multiple times, a new study reveals. These findings and others could help land managers plan more effective treatments in areas susceptible to fire, particularly in the fire-ravaged wildland-urban interfaces of California.

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A new study shows that smoke particles from human-lit fires are responsible for over 80% of smoke-related deaths each year. The study shows that smoke pollution is on the rise, reducing air quality, and leading to increased illness and premature deaths.

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The movement of people across the Bering Sea from North Asia to North America is a well-known phenomenon in early human history. Nevertheless, the genetic makeup of the  people who lived in North Asia during this time has remained mysterious due to a limited number of ancient genomes analyzed from this region. Now, researchers describe genomes from ten individuals up to 7,500 years old that help to fill the gap and show geneflow from people moving in the opposite direction from North America to North Asia.

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The analysis of ancient DNA allows scientists to trace human evolution and make important discoveries about modern populations. The data revealed by ancient DNA sampling can be valuable, but the human remains that carry this ancient DNA are often those of the ancestors of modern Indigenous groups, and some communities have expressed concerns about the ethics of sampling by outside parties. A group of scientists make the case for involvement of descendant communities in all aspects of the research process.

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Using a new method based upon comparing DNA mutation rates between parents and offspring, evolutionary biologists have revealed the average age of mothers versus fathers over the past 250,000 years, including the discovery that the age gap is shrinking, with women's average age at conception increasing from 23.2 years to 26.4 years, on average, in the past 5,000 years.

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Archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

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A new study found bird diversity increased in North Carolina mountain forest areas severely burned by wildfire in 2016, reinforcing that while wildfire can pose risks to safety and property, it can be beneficial to wildlife. The study results could help forest managers better predict bird responses to wildfire, and manage forests to benefit birds.

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U.S. firms rarely report their wildfire risks in required federal filings and instead bury such risks in nonspecific risk disclosures, according to new research.

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Sediment cores obtained from Eifel maar sites provide insight into the presence of large Ice Age mammals in Central Europe over the past 60,000 years: Overkill hypothesis not confirmed. Herds of megafauna, such as mammoth and bison, have roamed the prehistoric plains in what is today's Central Europe for several tens of thousands of years. As woodland expanded at the end of the last Ice Age, the numbers of these animals declined and by roughly 11,000 years ago, they had completely vanished from this region. Thus, the growth of forests was the main factor that determined the extinction of such megafauna in Central Europe.

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Modern Papuans' immune system likely evolved with a little help from the Denisovans, a mysterious human ancestor who interbred with ancient humans, according to a new study.

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Researchers have been studying the effects of the sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred about 8,200 years ago, the so-called 8.2-kiloyear event, with the help of mineral deposits present in White Moon Cave in Northern California. New indications show that oscillations between extreme wetness and aridity in California were closely linked with the occurrence of wildfires. The researchers have concluded that such events are likely to become more common in the face of human-induced climate change.