Skip to main content

Simon Haberle

The Australian National University, Archaeology and Natural History, Faculty Member

Followers

237

Following

148

Co-authors

42

Public Views

I completed my PhD at ANU on the "Late Quaternary Environmental History of the Tari Basin, Papua New Guinea", in 1994. While holding postdoctoral positions at the Smithsonian (STRI, Panama) and at the University of Cambridge I continued to pursue my interest in the role of past climate change and human activity on tropical and temperate ecosystems through work in the Amazon Basin and southern South America. My research is currently focussed on the application of high-resolution palaeoecological analysis to our understanding of the impact of Late Quaternary climate variability and human activity on terrestrial ecosystems in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. I am also developing e-Research tools in palaeoecology such as the Australasian Pollen and Spore Atlas and the PalaeoWorks website. I am currently using my knowledge of Australian pollen to explore the impact of atmospheric pollen and spores on respiratory health.

View a full list of publications in my CV
Phone: 02 6125 3373
Address: Department of Archaeology and Natural History,
School of Culture, History and Language,
College of Asia and the Pacific,
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200
Australia

less

Griffith University

Anthony Dosseto

University of Wollongong

Timothy Barrows

University of Wollongong

Lynda Petherick

The Australian National University

University of Reading

Brown University

InterestsView All (28)

Uploads

Books by Simon Haberle

Haberle, S.G. and David, B. (editors) 2012. Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes. Terra Australis 34, p472. ANU E-Press, Canberra.

Haberle, S.G., Stevenson, J. and Prebble, M. (editors) 2010 Altered Ecologies: Fire, Climate and Human Influence on Terrestrial Landscapes, Terra Australis 32, p512. ANU E-Press, Canberra.

Papers by Simon Haberle

Late Quaternary fire regimes of Australasia

Quaternary International, 2012

We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the tempor... more We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the temporal and spatial variability of fire regimes during the Late Quaternary. While some of these records cover more than a full glacial cycle, here we focus on the last 70,000 years when the number of individual records in the compilation allows more robust conclusions. On orbital time scales, fire in Australasia predominantly reflects climate, with colder periods characterized by less and warmer intervals by more biomass burning. The composite record for the region also shows considerable millennial-scale variability during the last glacial interval (73.5e14.7 ka). Within the limits of the dating uncertainties of individual records, the variability shown by the composite charcoal record is more similar to the form, number and timing of DansgaardeOeschger cycles as observed in Greenland ice cores than to the variability expressed in the Antarctic ice-core record. The composite charcoal record suggests increased biomass burning in the Australasian region during Greenland Interstadials and reduced burning during Greenland Stadials. Millennial-scale variability is characteristic of the composite record of the subtropical high pressure belt during the past 21 ka, but the tropics show a somewhat simpler pattern of variability with major peaks in biomass burning around 15 ka and 8 ka. There is no distinct change in fire regime corresponding to the arrival of humans in Australia at 50 AE 10 ka and no correlation between archaeological evidence of increased human activity during the past 40 ka and the history of biomass burning. However, changes in biomass burning in the last 200 years may have been exacerbated or influenced by humans.

Rapid global ocean-atmosphere response to Southern Ocean freshening during the last glacial

Nature communications, Sep 12, 2017

Contrasting Greenland and Antarctic temperatures during the last glacial period (115,000 to 11,65... more Contrasting Greenland and Antarctic temperatures during the last glacial period (115,000 to 11,650 years ago) are thought to have been driven by imbalances in the rates of formation of North Atlantic and Antarctic Deep Water (the 'bipolar seesaw'). Here we exploit a bidecadally resolved (14)C data set obtained from New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to undertake high-precision alignment of key climate data sets spanning iceberg-rafted debris event Heinrich 3 and Greenland Interstadial (GI) 5.1 in the North Atlantic (~30,400 to 28,400 years ago). We observe no divergence between the kauri and Atlantic marine sediment (14)C data sets, implying limited changes in deep water formation. However, a Southern Ocean (Atlantic-sector) iceberg rafted debris event appears to have occurred synchronously with GI-5.1 warming and decreased precipitation over the western equatorial Pacific and Atlantic. An ensemble of transient meltwater simulations shows that Antarctic-sourced salinity a...

Pollen-based biome reconstructions for Latin America at 0, 6000 and 18 000 radiocarbon years

Climate of the Past …, 2009

The biomisation method is used to reconstruct Latin American vegetation at 6000±500 and 18 000±10... more The biomisation method is used to reconstruct Latin American vegetation at 6000±500 and 18 000±1000 radiocarbon years before present (14 C yr BP) from pollen data. Tests using modern pollen data from 381 samples derived from 287 locations broadly reproduce potential natural vegetation. The strong temperature gradient associated with the Andes is recorded by a transition from high altitude cool grass/shrubland and cool mixed forest to mid-altitude cool temperate rain forest, to tropical dry, seasonal and rain forest at low altitudes. Reconstructed biomes from a number of sites do not match the potential vegetation due to local factors such as human impact, methodological artefacts and mechanisms of pollen representivity of the parent vegetation. At 6000±500 14 C yr BP 255 samples are analysed from 127 sites. Differences between the modern and the 6000±500 14 C yr BP reconstruction are comparatively small; change relative to the modern reconstruction are mainly to biomes characteristic of drier climate in the north of the region with a slight more mesic shift in the south. Cool temperate rain forest remains dominant in western South America. In northwestern South America a number of sites record transitions from tropical seasonal forest to tropical dry forest and tropical rain forest to tropical seasonal forest. Sites in Central America show a change in biome assignment, but to more mesic vegetation, indicative of greater plant available moisture, e.g. on the Yucatán peninsula sites record warm evergreen forest, replacing tropical dry forest and warm mixed forest presently recorded. At 18 000±1000 14 C yr BP 61 samples from 34 sites record vegetation reflecting a generally cool and dry environment. Cool grass/shrubland is prevalent in southeast Brazil whereas Amazonian sites record tropical dry forest, warm temperate rain forest and tropical seasonal forest. Southernmost South America is dominated by cool grass/shrubland, a single site retains cool temperate rain forest indicating that forest was present at some locations at the LGM. Some sites in Central Mexico and lowland Colombia remain unchanged in the biome assignments of warm mixed forest and tropical dry forest respectively, although the affinities that these sites have to different biomes do change between 18 000±1000

The macroecology of airborne pollen in Australian and New Zealand urban areas

PLoS ONE, 2014

The composition and relative abundance of airborne pollen in urban areas of Australia and New Zea... more The composition and relative abundance of airborne pollen in urban areas of Australia and New Zealand are strongly influenced by geographical location, climate and land use. There is mounting evidence that the diversity and quality of airborne pollen is substantially modified by climate change and land-use yet there are insufficient data to project the future nature of these changes. Our study highlights the need for long-term aerobiological monitoring in Australian and New Zealand urban areas in a systematic, standardised, and sustained way, and provides a framework for targeting the most clinically significant taxa in terms of abundance, allergenic effects and public health burden.

Micro Methods for Megafauna: Novel Approaches to Late Quaternary Extinctions and Their Contributions to Faunal Conservation in the Anthropocene

by Kristina G Douglass, Simon Haberle, and Jillian Swift

BioScience, 2019

Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a... more Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.

A landscape vulnerability framework for identifying integrated conservation and adaptation pathways to climate change: the case of Madagascar's spiny forest

by Malika Virah-Sawmy, Simon Haberle, Atholl Anderson, and Geoffrey Clark

Context Integrated conservation decision-making frameworks that help to design or adjust practice... more Context Integrated conservation decision-making frameworks that help to design or adjust practices that are cognisant of environmental change and adaptation are urgently needed. Objective We demonstrate how a landscape vulnerability framework combining sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and exposure to climate change framed along two main axes of concern can help to identify potential strategies for conservation and adaptation decisionmaking, using a landscape in Madagascar's spiny forest as a case-study.

Pollen-based reconstructions of biome distributions for Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (SEAPAC region) at 0, 6000 and 18,000 14C yr BP

by John Dodson, Simon Haberle, Sander van der Kaars, and Merna McKenzie

Journal of Biogeography, 2004

Aim This paper documents reconstructions of the vegetation patterns in Australia, Southeast Asia ... more

Regional and seasonal variation in airborne grass pollen levels between cities of Australia and New Zealand

Aerobiologia, 2015

Palaeoenvironmental changes in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea

Archaeology in Oceania, 1996

Page 1. Archaeol Oceania 31 (1996) 1-11 Palaeoenvironmental changes in the eastern highlands of P... more

The emergence of an agricultural landscape in the highlands of New Guinea

Archaeology in Oceania, 2003

... Earliest palynological records of human impact on the world&#x27;s vegetation. In FM Cham... more

Paleotemperature Estimates for the Lowland Americas Between 30°S and 30°N at the Last Glacial Maximum

Interhemispheric Climate Linkages, 2001

Contributor contact details

Improving the Safety of Fresh Meat, 2005

Using dung fungi to interpret decline and extinction of megaherbivores: problems and solutions

Quaternary Science Reviews, 2015

Perspectives on Prehistoric Agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands || Front Matter

Environmental History of the Humid Tropics Region of North-East Australia

416 Holocene mangrove history reflecting coastal evolution in Northern Australia

Holocene landscape dynamics in the lower Ord River/Parry Lagoons region, eastern Kimberley

263 Accelerating pollen phenomics with the Classifynder

Haberle, S.G. and David, B. (editors) 2012. Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes. Terra Australis 34, p472. ANU E-Press, Canberra.

Haberle, S.G., Stevenson, J. and Prebble, M. (editors) 2010 Altered Ecologies: Fire, Climate and Human Influence on Terrestrial Landscapes, Terra Australis 32, p512. ANU E-Press, Canberra.

Late Quaternary fire regimes of Australasia

Quaternary International, 2012

We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the tempor... more We have compiled 223 sedimentary charcoal records from Australasia in order to examine the temporal and spatial variability of fire regimes during the Late Quaternary. While some of these records cover more than a full glacial cycle, here we focus on the last 70,000 years when the number of individual records in the compilation allows more robust conclusions. On orbital time scales, fire in Australasia predominantly reflects climate, with colder periods characterized by less and warmer intervals by more biomass burning. The composite record for the region also shows considerable millennial-scale variability during the last glacial interval (73.5e14.7 ka). Within the limits of the dating uncertainties of individual records, the variability shown by the composite charcoal record is more similar to the form, number and timing of DansgaardeOeschger cycles as observed in Greenland ice cores than to the variability expressed in the Antarctic ice-core record. The composite charcoal record suggests increased biomass burning in the Australasian region during Greenland Interstadials and reduced burning during Greenland Stadials. Millennial-scale variability is characteristic of the composite record of the subtropical high pressure belt during the past 21 ka, but the tropics show a somewhat simpler pattern of variability with major peaks in biomass burning around 15 ka and 8 ka. There is no distinct change in fire regime corresponding to the arrival of humans in Australia at 50 AE 10 ka and no correlation between archaeological evidence of increased human activity during the past 40 ka and the history of biomass burning. However, changes in biomass burning in the last 200 years may have been exacerbated or influenced by humans.

Rapid global ocean-atmosphere response to Southern Ocean freshening during the last glacial

Nature communications, Sep 12, 2017

Contrasting Greenland and Antarctic temperatures during the last glacial period (115,000 to 11,65... more Contrasting Greenland and Antarctic temperatures during the last glacial period (115,000 to 11,650 years ago) are thought to have been driven by imbalances in the rates of formation of North Atlantic and Antarctic Deep Water (the 'bipolar seesaw'). Here we exploit a bidecadally resolved (14)C data set obtained from New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to undertake high-precision alignment of key climate data sets spanning iceberg-rafted debris event Heinrich 3 and Greenland Interstadial (GI) 5.1 in the North Atlantic (~30,400 to 28,400 years ago). We observe no divergence between the kauri and Atlantic marine sediment (14)C data sets, implying limited changes in deep water formation. However, a Southern Ocean (Atlantic-sector) iceberg rafted debris event appears to have occurred synchronously with GI-5.1 warming and decreased precipitation over the western equatorial Pacific and Atlantic. An ensemble of transient meltwater simulations shows that Antarctic-sourced salinity a...

Pollen-based biome reconstructions for Latin America at 0, 6000 and 18 000 radiocarbon years

Climate of the Past …, 2009

The biomisation method is used to reconstruct Latin American vegetation at 6000±500 and 18 000±10... more The biomisation method is used to reconstruct Latin American vegetation at 6000±500 and 18 000±1000 radiocarbon years before present (14 C yr BP) from pollen data. Tests using modern pollen data from 381 samples derived from 287 locations broadly reproduce potential natural vegetation. The strong temperature gradient associated with the Andes is recorded by a transition from high altitude cool grass/shrubland and cool mixed forest to mid-altitude cool temperate rain forest, to tropical dry, seasonal and rain forest at low altitudes. Reconstructed biomes from a number of sites do not match the potential vegetation due to local factors such as human impact, methodological artefacts and mechanisms of pollen representivity of the parent vegetation. At 6000±500 14 C yr BP 255 samples are analysed from 127 sites. Differences between the modern and the 6000±500 14 C yr BP reconstruction are comparatively small; change relative to the modern reconstruction are mainly to biomes characteristic of drier climate in the north of the region with a slight more mesic shift in the south. Cool temperate rain forest remains dominant in western South America. In northwestern South America a number of sites record transitions from tropical seasonal forest to tropical dry forest and tropical rain forest to tropical seasonal forest. Sites in Central America show a change in biome assignment, but to more mesic vegetation, indicative of greater plant available moisture, e.g. on the Yucatán peninsula sites record warm evergreen forest, replacing tropical dry forest and warm mixed forest presently recorded. At 18 000±1000 14 C yr BP 61 samples from 34 sites record vegetation reflecting a generally cool and dry environment. Cool grass/shrubland is prevalent in southeast Brazil whereas Amazonian sites record tropical dry forest, warm temperate rain forest and tropical seasonal forest. Southernmost South America is dominated by cool grass/shrubland, a single site retains cool temperate rain forest indicating that forest was present at some locations at the LGM. Some sites in Central Mexico and lowland Colombia remain unchanged in the biome assignments of warm mixed forest and tropical dry forest respectively, although the affinities that these sites have to different biomes do change between 18 000±1000

The macroecology of airborne pollen in Australian and New Zealand urban areas

PLoS ONE, 2014

The composition and relative abundance of airborne pollen in urban areas of Australia and New Zea... more The composition and relative abundance of airborne pollen in urban areas of Australia and New Zealand are strongly influenced by geographical location, climate and land use. There is mounting evidence that the diversity and quality of airborne pollen is substantially modified by climate change and land-use yet there are insufficient data to project the future nature of these changes. Our study highlights the need for long-term aerobiological monitoring in Australian and New Zealand urban areas in a systematic, standardised, and sustained way, and provides a framework for targeting the most clinically significant taxa in terms of abundance, allergenic effects and public health burden.

Micro Methods for Megafauna: Novel Approaches to Late Quaternary Extinctions and Their Contributions to Faunal Conservation in the Anthropocene

by Kristina G Douglass, Simon Haberle, and Jillian Swift

BioScience, 2019

Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a... more Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.

A landscape vulnerability framework for identifying integrated conservation and adaptation pathways to climate change: the case of Madagascar's spiny forest

by Malika Virah-Sawmy, Simon Haberle, Atholl Anderson, and Geoffrey Clark

Context Integrated conservation decision-making frameworks that help to design or adjust practice... more Context Integrated conservation decision-making frameworks that help to design or adjust practices that are cognisant of environmental change and adaptation are urgently needed. Objective We demonstrate how a landscape vulnerability framework combining sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and exposure to climate change framed along two main axes of concern can help to identify potential strategies for conservation and adaptation decisionmaking, using a landscape in Madagascar's spiny forest as a case-study.

Pollen-based reconstructions of biome distributions for Australia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific (SEAPAC region) at 0, 6000 and 18,000 14C yr BP

by John Dodson, Simon Haberle, Sander van der Kaars, and Merna McKenzie

Journal of Biogeography, 2004

Aim This paper documents reconstructions of the vegetation patterns in Australia, Southeast Asia ... more

Regional and seasonal variation in airborne grass pollen levels between cities of Australia and New Zealand

Aerobiologia, 2015

Palaeoenvironmental changes in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea

Archaeology in Oceania, 1996

Page 1. Archaeol Oceania 31 (1996) 1-11 Palaeoenvironmental changes in the eastern highlands of P... more

The emergence of an agricultural landscape in the highlands of New Guinea

Archaeology in Oceania, 2003

... Earliest palynological records of human impact on the world&#x27;s vegetation. In FM Cham... more

Paleotemperature Estimates for the Lowland Americas Between 30°S and 30°N at the Last Glacial Maximum

Interhemispheric Climate Linkages, 2001

Contributor contact details

Improving the Safety of Fresh Meat, 2005

Using dung fungi to interpret decline and extinction of megaherbivores: problems and solutions

Quaternary Science Reviews, 2015

Perspectives on Prehistoric Agriculture in the New Guinea Highlands || Front Matter

Environmental History of the Humid Tropics Region of North-East Australia

416 Holocene mangrove history reflecting coastal evolution in Northern Australia

Holocene landscape dynamics in the lower Ord River/Parry Lagoons region, eastern Kimberley

263 Accelerating pollen phenomics with the Classifynder

072 Reconstructing Holocene vegetation and fire history at Lake Wilks, Tasmania, Australia

WETLAND ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE HIGHLANDS OF NEW GUINEA

Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: Practice, Potential and Prospects

by Andrew Fairbairn, Huw Barton, Richard L K Fullagar, Richard L K Fullagar, and Simon Haberle

Archaeobotany is the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Despite Australasian re... more Archaeobotany is the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Despite Australasian research being at the forefront of several methodological innovations over the last three decades, archaeobotany is now a relatively peripheral concern to most archaeological projects in Australia and New Guinea. In this paper, many practicing archaeobotanists working in these regions argue for a more central role for archaeobotany in standard archaeological practice. An overview of archaeobotanical techniques and applications is presented, the potential for archaeobotany to address key historical research questions is indicated, and initiatives designed to promote archaeobotany and improve current practices are outlined.