Evidence of late Pleistocene fires and eucalypt forest from a North Queensland humid tropical rainforest site

Abstract

Abstract Charcoal fragments, some identified as Eucalyptus , with radiocarbon dates spanning the period 27 000–12 000 years bp , were found in a soil profile under moist tropical rainforest in north‐eastern Australia. The charcoal indicates that sclerophyll forest occupied a central part of the Windsor Tableland rainforest massif during the late Pleistocene. The widespread presence of identifiable and dateable charcoal under rainforest in north Queensland provides an opportunity to examine the patterns and ecological implications of fluctuations in rainforest distribution in recent history.