Climate Change - an Archaeological Study by Grainger John D.;

Author:Grainger, John D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SCIENCE / Global Warming & Climate Change
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2020-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Bass Strait Islands

Presumably this adaptation happened also in the islands and peninsulas which were the remnants of Sundaland, but the research there is not yet definitive. In Australia, where there were the same problems – flooding and deserts – the issue is overshadowed by the simultaneous desiccation of the interior of the continent (one of the subjects of Chapter 6). One area, however, indicates one possible reaction, or rather alternative reactions.

Tasmania became separated from the mainland of Australia by about 11,000 years ago. The present Bass Strait had been a huge bay until then, and the first separation was near the mainland coast, leaving Tasmania with long peninsulas pointing to the north. As the sea level continued to rise these peninsulas were progressively reduced to the islands which now exist – King Island, Flinders Island, and lots of others. The final separation of all these islands from mainland Tasmania occurred about 8,000 years ago (about the time the Gulf was flooded), but the sea level went on rising for another two or three millennia. So the geographical result was one large island, Tasmania, and a lot of smaller islands littering the Bass Strait. Many of these smaller islands were already inhabited when they became separated from the mainland (Fig. 37).

Fig. 37. THE BASS STRAIT ISLANDS. Tasmania and the islands of the strait were attached to the Australian mainland until about 11,000 years ago, but then the oceans flooded the narrow peninsula north of Erith Island. From then on more and more islands were formed, but the decisive breaks came in the next thousand years. By 10,000 years ago, King Island was separated from Tasmania, and by 8,500 years ago Flinders was an island.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.