Wallace's Line is a faunal boundary line identified by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859 which separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia.
Bridging Wallace's Line reviews and assembles recent research on
aspects of the environmental and cultural history and dynamics of
Southeast Asia and Australia. It incorporates a new approach to
Wallace's Line by focusing on geographical continuities rather than
differences. Taking the view that a seam can be approached from either
side, Wallace's Line symbolises a conceptual unification of regional
variation into matters of global interest. These themes are cemented
by the exclusion of that component which emphasizes difference across
the Line and other nearby biogeographic demarcations, the fauna.
Bridging Wallace's Line contains three Sections. The first provides
contextual information for later contributions focused on the
Quaternary. It includes essential background reviews on geology and
plant biogeography, and also on the climate dynamics of the Maritime
Continent, an area of increasing importance in understanding global
climate change. The second Section presents new research on Quaternary
environmental change in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region. Pollen
records offer evidence of transformations in vegetation patterning in
relation to climate change, sea level fluctuations, biomass burning
and the effects of mountain glaciers. These environmental dynamics
provide a framework for the colonisation and adaptation of Homo
erectus and H. sapiens across the region, explored in Section
three. This volume challenges long-held assumptions of essential
difference across the Southeast Asia-Australia divide, bridging
Wallace's Line for a fuller exploration of regional dynamics with
global implications.
Table of Contens
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Preface
Bruno David, Peter Kershaw and Nigel Tapper
Bridging Wallace's Line: Bringing Home the Antipodes 1
Part I Environmental Background
Nigel Tapper
Climate, Climatic Variability and Atmospheric Circulation Patterns in
the Maritime Continent Region 5
Ian Metcalfe
Tectonic History of the SE Asian-Australian Region 29
Robert J. Morley
Tertiary Vegetational History of Southeast Asia, with Emphasis on the
Biogeographical Relationships with Australia 49
Trevor Whiffin
Plant Biogeography of the SE Asian-Australian Region 61
Part II Quaternary Environments
A.A. Polhaupessy
Quaternary Flora and Vegetation of Java 83
Peter Kershaw, Sander van der Kaars, Patrick Moss and Xuan Wang
Quaternary Records of Vegetation, Biomass Burning, Climate and
Possible Human Impact in the Indonesian-Northern Australian Region 97
John Grindrod, Patrick Moss and Sander van der Kaars
Late Quaternary Mangrove Pollen Records from Continental Shelf
and Ocean Cores in the North Australian-Indonesian Region 119
J. Ignacio Martinez, Patrick De Deckker and Timothy T. Barrows
Palaeoceanography of the Western Pacific Warm Pool During the Last
Glacial Maximum: Long-term Climatic Monitoring of the Maritime
Continent 147
Jim Peterson, Geoff Hope, Mike Prentice and Wahyoe Hantoro
Mountain Environments in New Guinea and the Last Glacial Maximum ’Warm
Seas/Cold Mountains’ Enigma in the West Pacific Warm Pool Region 173
Andrew L. Maxwell and Kam-biu Liu
Late Quaternary Pollen and Associated Records from the
Monsoonal Areas of Continental South and SE Asia 189
David Godley
The Reconstruction of Flood Regimes in SE Asia from El Nino-Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) Related Records 229
Part III The Peopling of Sunda and Sahul
Ian Walters
Early Hominids in SE Asia: Older, Younger, Smarter and More 255
Nicola van Dijk and Alan Thorne
Asia and the Peopling of Polynesia: Understanding Sequential Migration
263
Sue O'Connor, Ken P. Aplin, Matthew Spriggs, Peter Veth and Linda K. Ayliffe
From Savannah to Rainforest: Changing Environments and Human
Occupation at Liang Lembudu, Aru Islands, Maluku (Indonesia) 279
Harry Lourandos and Bruno David
Long-term Archaeological and Environmental Trends: A Comparison from
Late Pleistocene-Holocene Australia 307
Lesley Potter
Forests and Grassland, Drought and Fire: The Island of Borneo in the
Historical Environmental Record (post-1800)339
Contributors 357
