This Element addresses a burning question-how can archaeologists best identify and interpret cultural burning, the controlled use of fire by people to shape and curate their physical and social landscapes? This Elementdescribes what cultural burning is and presents current methods by which it can be identified in historical and archaeological records, applying internationally relevant methods to Australian landscapes. It clarifies how the transdisciplinary study of cultural burning by Quaternary scientists, historians, archaeologists and Indigenous community members is informing interpretations of cultural practices, ecological change, land use and the making of place. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
1. Introduction; 2. What is cultural burning? Caring for country with fire; 3. Reading past cultural burning through colonial art; 4. Cultural burning in the quaternary record-Scientific approaches, methods and applications; 5. Historicising cultural burning through buried charcoal: amount of burned vegetation and recurrence rates of fire episodes in the Furneaux Islands, Bass Strait, Australia; 6. Conclusion: implications for the investigation of past cultural burning practices globally; References.
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