IdeaWazaWiki - User contributions [en]

Lunar Magic

2013-01-28T17:38:51Z

165.155.200.66: /* Editing the Game */

{{Multiple issues|{{copy edit|date=January 2013}}{{unreferenced|date=January 2013}}{{notability|date=January 2013}}}}

{{Uncategorized|date=January 2013}}
Lunar Magic is a level editor created by FuSoYa for [[Super Mario World]]. It's well known for being the tool that created the famous hacked game: Brutal Mario World1.

=== FuSoYa's Program Description2 ===
"Lunar Magic is a level editor I created for Super Mario World (SNES). During its 12 year span of being the only level editor available for this classic game, it's inspired the creation of countless modifications of SMW by fans and casual players alike. It wasn't originally intended to be a long term project, but things turned out otherwise...

I began looking into making an editor for SMW shortly after releasing the SoM VWF patch, mostly on a whim to see how hard it would be. I started out in February 2000 by figuring out the compression format for the graphics and building the necessary decompression and recompression tools. I went on to decode the level layout data, which required disassembling a fair portion of the ROM's ASM code. Then I reused the old GUI for the unfinished prototype of the Sailor Moon Map Editor to begin constructing the level editor. I implemented the drag/drop support I had originally planned for SMRPG's editor, and rewrote the GFX routines to handle Mario World's format. This was done sometime in mid-summer.

Then came implementing an "Add Object" GUI, without which editing Mario Levels would become an exercise in extreme tediousness. I also created the MWL format, put in layer 2 support, and added a bunch of other dialogs and what-nots that were essential to changing the properties of a level. Which was finished sometime in mid-August.

By then of course I was horrified by the sheer amount of time it had taken to build the silly program, but I was more horrified still to realize that the whole thing would be a waste if I didn't put in the sprite support to finish it off. So I put in sprite support, as well as an "Add Sprites" GUI and a couple small ASM ROM modifications. I quickly wrapped up most of the loose ends by early September.

In late September it was finally released to the public for the first time. At that point I thought my job was pretty much complete, other than perhaps for a few minor revisions that could be added as needed.

Well, there were indeed a few revisions and fixes. And then a few more. And then some extra ASM enhancements to the game. And then a few more of those too. Before I knew it, it was already September 2001, a full year since Lunar Magic had first been released. In that time I had added extra graphics, 4bpp support, custom palettes, clipboard support, extended animated tiles, bypass dialogs, Japanese ROM support, layer 2 editing for the overworld, and all sorts of other minor enhancements.

By the end of 2001, the overworld editor had full layer 1 support, making it possible to redesign the level layout and overworld paths of SMW. In early 2002, text editing for the overworld level names, the castle event sequences, and the message boxes had also been implemented. But by mid-2002, Lunar Magic's development finally began winding down.

After releasing version 1.51 in September 2002, there was a long period where I was busy with other things. Development on the program slowed to a crawl. This was also around the same time that I and Zero-G started working on Demo World TLC, but it also stalled early in 2003. It wasn't until mid-2003 that we started trying to get it done in time for LM's next release. LM was updated to allow for far more ExGFX files, and a new feature was added for level-specific tile and palette animation. The overworld was also finally finished off with animation and a sprite editing mode.

A few days after DW:TLC was released, LM version 1.60 was also released in September of 2003. There were a few minor bug fix releases over the next 2 years, but this was followed by a long 4 year period of inactivity since I figured (once again) that the program was complete and that I could move on to other things.

This lasted up until September of 2009, when version 1.64 was released to address various issues that had been noticed over the years. By this point the SMW community had grown considerably, and I was approached by smkdan about the possibility of including an ASM enhancement in LM for SMW that he was considering making to increase the number of tiles that levels could use. I agreed, and used the time to add several other things like 4x more Map16 and an ExAnimation rewrite, which was released as version 1.70 in April of 2010.

But since there were still some things I had in mind to polish up and update, work on the program has continued and now it's up to version 2.10 in 2012, over 12 years since Lunar Magic was first released.

Looking back, I'd say it's pretty cool that modifying SMW is still going strong after all this time. This has become one of the most popular Mario games to edit out there. So I'd like to express my thanks to Nintendo, for creating a game that so many people have spent untold hours playing, editing and just generally having lots of 16-bit fun with. ^^"

=== Main Uses ===
As a level editor for Super Mario World, Lunar Magic is often used as an assistant tool to hack and create new games, such as the case of Brutal Mario World.

==== Editing the Game ====
There are two ways to edit the game: Level Editor, where you can edit the enemies and items of an especific level, and Overworld editor, where you can edit the land mass, the ways Mario travels and the level's positions in the Overworld. Both of them are pretty useful when creating a game, since you want it to be unique.

== Most Downloaded games ==
Here's the list of the most downloaded games from the SMW Central3

5 "Super" Amazing World ---------- uyuyuy99

4 Brutal Mario [Demo] ------------ Carol

3 Super Demo World: The Legend Continues ---------- FuSoYa

2 The Second Reality Project Reloaded ----------- FPI

1 [Translation] Brutal Mario (English) --------- Carol

=== External Links ===

1 Brutal Mario World Download - http://www.smwcentral.net/?p=showhack&id=1012

2 FuSoYa's Niche -http://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lm/index.html

3 SMW Central Your 7 year old SMW hacking source - http://www.smwcentral.net/

Natural and Cultural History of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests

2008-10-14T18:08:28Z

165.155.192.68: /* Chapter: Mesozoic Era (290 000 000 - 65 000 000) */

Under provisions of the World Heritage Convention, in 1989, the United Nation's World Heritage Committee inscribed 900 000 hectares of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests on to the World Heritage list as being heritage of outstanding universal value to humankind.

This, then, is a history of this universally significant heritage. It is a natural and cultural history that reaches back to Gondwana, moves through time into the present, then onwards, 50 years hence, into a predicted globally warmer future. 
 

====[insert Map of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests]====

=Chapter: Mesozoic Era (290 000 000 - 65 000 000)=

==Permian Period (290 000 000 - 248 200 000)==
==Triassic Period (248 200 000 - 205 700 000)==

==Jurassic Period (205 700 000 - 142 000 000)==
This is a period of globally warm temperatures, and at latitudes higher (further towards the poles) than 45 degrees (from the equator) rainfall is high and there are extensive swamps (evidenced in the present by large coal deposits)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''205 700 000''':=====
What is presently called Australia, is, at this time, part of a single continent (Gondwana) comprised of an amalgamation of present Australia, Africa, South America, Madagascar, India, and Antarctica.<ref name="Adam001">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests.''' Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 138</ref> 

====='''175 000 000''':=====
At the location of present day northern New South Wales (Talbragar Fish Beds), there is a forested landscape dominated by ''Agathis'' (ie Kauri') together with podocarps (ie southern conifers), and in the understory are cycads, ferns, and tree ferns. Around the lake is a zone of seed ferns. Present day relict gymnosperm ''Agathis'' (Kauri) forests on the Atherton Tablelands represent a modern assemblage of plants with the same basic composition as the Jurassic (Gondwana) forests covering present day northern New South Wales (ie Podocarps [southern conifers] growing among the Kauri pines [''Agathis robusta''], with tree like cycads [''Lepidozamia hopei''] in the understory.<ref>WHITE, M.E (1986) '''The greening of Gondwana'''. Reed. Sydney.</ref>

====='''160 000 000''':=====
West Gondwana (present Africa and South America) start to seperate from East Gondwana (Australia, Antarctic, India, and Madagascar), with South America and Antarctic still connected for a while yet.<ref name="Adam001"/> Various fragments of the northern margin of the present Australian plate also begin to detach and drift northwards to form an achipelago of terrestrial habitats (micro-continental fragments) between Gondwana and that other more northern continent, Laurasia <ref name="Adam002"/>

==Cretaceous Period (142 000 000 - 65 000 000)==
This period (the Cretaceous) is a time of high global temperatures and high sea-levels, such that most of present Australia is covered by shallow seas, and the present land surface is divided into three major 'islands'.<ref name="Truswell001">TRUSWELL, E.M & WILFORD, G.E (1985) ''The Setting: Changing Australian environments throughout geological time'', in RICH, P.V; VAN TETS, G.F; & KNIGHT, F (Eds) '''Kadimakara: Extinct vertevrates of Australia'''. Pioneer Design Studio. Victoria</ref>

The remaining mass of what was Gondwana, still well south of present locations, allow warm oceanic currents to flow to high latitudes, with what would now be regarded as as tropical and sub-tropical climates southwards of 45 degrees down to 60 degrees south, and warm wet conditions reaching so far south that even the south polar regions have a relatively mild climate.<ref>ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 142</ref>

===Lower Cretaceous Epoch (142 000 000 - 97 500 000)===

====Neocomian Stage (142 000 000 - 125 000 000)====
The world's first evolutionary burst of angiosperms (see Glossary) occurs at this time.<ref name="Truswell">TRUSWELL, E.W (1990) "''Australian Rainforests: The 100 Million Year Record''", in WEBB, L.J & KIKKAWA, J (Eds) '''Australian Tropical Rainforests: Science, Values, Meaning'''. CSIRO Publications. Melbourne</ref>. This evolutionary burst produced pollen of a type now (in the present) referred to by the fossil name ''Clavatipellonites''. These ''Clavatipellonites'' appear and spread around the world (as it was then), though they don't yet reach Australia (part of East Gondwana).<ref name="Truswell"/>

====='''128 000 000''':=====
India (tectonic plate)splits away from present West Australia and moves to the north east.<ref name="Adam002">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 139</ref>

====Barremian Stage (125 000 000 - 119 000 000)====

====Aptian Stage (119 000 000 - 113 000 000)====
The world's first wind pollenation dependent angiosperms appear in present tropical west Africa (now seperated from East Gondwana) spreading poleward. The pollens of these plants are smaller, radially symmetrical grains, generally succeeding and replacing the ''Clavatipellonite'' pollens (and those plants communities that produced these pollens) around the world during this epoch., though, again (similar to the delay in the spread of the ''Clavatipellonites''), they do not seem to reach Australia (part of East Gondwana) at this time.<ref name="Truswell"/>

====Albian Stage (113 000 000 - 97 500 000)====
It is during this epoch that the world reaches its peak or highest global temperatures in over 500 million years (ie the highest temperature interval in the whole of the Phanerozoic Eon)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

It is first during this stage that the world's first angiosperms (represented in the fossil record by the ''Clavatipellonites'') reach Australia and enter the Australian ecological mixes of the time, somewhat later than other parts of the world.<ref name="Truswell"/><ref name="Adam004">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 144</ref> 

====='''100 000 000''':=====
Some of the northern fragments from the margin of the Australian plate, forming an archipelago between East Gondwana and Laurasia (present Burma and West Thailand) collide with the Laurasian Indo-China block (present east Thailand and Indo-China) <ref name="Adam002"/>

====='''95 000 000''':=====
East Gondwana (including present Australia) becomes further fragmented, with two further plates, present Lord Howe Rise/New Zealand and Antarctica coming into existence.<ref name="Adam002"/>

===Upper Cretaceous Epoch (97 500 000 - 65 000 000)===

====Cenomanian Stage (97 500 000 - 91 000 000)====

====='''80 000 000'':=====
The present Australian tectonic plate and the New Zealand tectonic plate seperate relatively rapidly (on a geological timescale) from this date.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Turonian Stage (91 000 000 - 88 500 000)====

====Senonian Stage (88 500 000 - 65 000 000)====
There appears in Australia (and the associated Australian microfossil pollen record) plants might be considered ancesteral, or somehow related to plants that now appear in present day Australian forests including Proteaceae, Ilex and Nothofagus <ref name="Martin001">MARTIN, H.A (1978) ''Evolution of the Australian and vegetation through the Tertiary: evidence from pollen.'' '''Alcheringa'''. Volume 2. Pages 181 - 202.</ref>

=Chapter: Cenozoic Era (65 000 000 years to 000 000)=

==Tertiary Sub-Era==
From the beginning of this sub-era (the Teritary), Australia's 'Great Dividing Range' has formed and stretches along almost the whole of the east coast of present Australia, constituting a highlands within a continent of otherwise relatively low relief. This range, in combination with the 'Great Escarpment' that suddenly drops off to the east for almost the entire length of the range, is a major landscape feature within Australia which will, for millions of years to come always experience relatively high rainfalls; will influence continental climatic patterns; and will effect future distributions and survivals of Gondwana descended flora and fauna.<ref name="Adam003">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 141.</ref> 

Also during this sub-era there are 'marine incursions' in present Southern Australia, flooding what is now the Nullabor Plain and the lower Murray Basin. <ref name="Adam003"/>

===Paleaogene Period (65 000 000 - 23 800 000)===
Present Australia is still at high altitudes (much closer to the south pole than in the present), yet it remains relatively warm and wet, with rain-bearing clouds extending well inland (and, there is little or no ice in Antarctica).<ref name="Kemp001">KEMP, E.M. (1978) ''Tertiary climatic evolution and vegetation hisotry in the southeast Indian Ocean region''. '''Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 24. Pages 169-208.</ref>

====Palaeocene Epoch (65 000 000 - 54 800 000)====
An abundance and diversity of cryptogams (ie ferns, mosses, algae & fungi: see Glossary) thrive in continuing moist conditions in Australia generally, and along the Great Dividing Range in particular.<ref name="Lange001">LANGE, R.T (1982) ''Australian Tertiary vegetation: Evidence and Interpretation'', in SMITH, J.M.B (Ed) '''A History of Australasian vegetation'''. Mgraw-Hill. Sydney. Pages 44-89.</ref>. Gymnosperms still dominate the plant communities, but during this epoch there is also a significant increase in the prominence of Proteaceae (see Glossary) ancestors in particular.<ref>MARTIN, H,A (1987) ''Cainozoic history of the vegetation and climate of the Lachlan River region, New South Wales.'' '''Proceedings of Linnean Society of New South Wales'''. Volume 109. Pages 213-257.</ref>.

====Eocene Epoch (54 800 000 - 33 700 000)====
The sea-way between Australia and the Antarctica has begun to widen but it is still shallow, and there is therefore still relatively small differences in ocean temperatures from the equator to the high latitudes, with the climate over Australia still being warm and wet, though with a heavier winter rainy season in the south-east.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

The Australian continent is still covered, generally, with cool to warm, moist, closed forests, but the plant communities/assemblages themselves change notceably from those of the previous epoch, with a dropping off in the earlier emergent prominence of the Proteaceae, and an associated emergence of an even greater diversity of angiosperm taxa<ref name="Martin001"/> including tropical Olacaceae ancestors (now represently by a single species in present north-east Australia's wet tropical forests), ancestors (Cupanieae tribe)of the Sapindaceae, plus a salt water palm now known as Nypa (beginnings of present mangrove plant communities and eco-systems, presently represented in Australia by ''Nypa fruticans'').<ref name="Lange001"/>

The climate of the southern parts of Australia were almost tropical, the equivalent of which is now found in northern Australia, including, particularly, North-East Australia's wet tropical forests<ref>CHRISTOPHEL, D.C & GREENWOOD, D.R (1988) ''A comparison of Australian tropical rainforest and Tertiary fossil leaf-beds''. '''Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia'''. Volume 15. Pages 139-148.</ref>:

i. at what is now Anglesea, Victoria (Australia), during this epoch, there was simple notophyll vine forest of a kind now found in north-east Australia's wet tropical forests (thier closed analogue being the rainforest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River)

ii. what is now Golden Grove, South Australia, during this epoch, there was complex mesophyll vine forests of ancestor species that are presently represented within, and restricted to the complex mesophyll vine forests of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests.

====='''45 000 000''':=====
Present Australian tectonic plate begins to move rapidly (on a geological timescale) northwards, seperating from present Antarctica and seperated by a shallow sea. At the same time the spreading between present India and Australia ceases, and the two seperate plates 'coalese' to form an Indo-Australian Plate.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Oligocene Epoch (33 700 000 - 23 800 000)====
Circumpolar oceanic circulation developes during this Epoch, effectively reducing the transfer of heat from the equator southwards, which results in some cooling and lower rainfalls in the south of present Australian continent.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

====='''30 000 000''':=====
As the present Australian continent drifts northwards, it passes over a fixed hot-spot in the underlying mantle, with Australia's oldest central volcanoes erupting in the north at this time, with later, younger central volcanoes erupting progressively southwards within the Australian continent.<ref>OLLIER, C.D. (1986) ''Early Landform Evolution'', in JEANS, D.N (ed) '''Australia - A Geography. Volume 1: The natural environment'''. Sydney University Press, Sydney. Pages 97-116.</ref>

===Neogene Period (23 800 000 - 1 800 000)===

====Miocene Epoch (23 800 000 - 5 300 000)====

====='''15 000 000''':=====
Present Australia's northward drift continues and, at this time, the Australian plate collides with the South-East Asian plate, ending 30 million years (ie 45 000 000 - 15 000 000) of isolation, and marking the first contact between Australia and South-East Asia.<ref name="Adam002"/>

At the same time (15 million years ago) major change occurrs in the Australian climate, with a pronouncing 'drying' accompanying the build up of the Antarctic ice-cap, and the associated southern hemisphere wind circulation starting to approach those of the present.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====Pliocene Epoch (5 300 000 - 1 800 000)====
At the beginning of this Epoch, the Australian continent is marked by it's aridity, which spreads northwards from the south as a belt of anticyclonic wind circulation developes (driven by the expansion of the antarctic ice cap) closer migrates northwards from the higher latitudes.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''2 000 000''':=====
Seasonal patterns of variation in climate approximating present day patterns, take hold of the Australian continent from this date onwards, into the present..<ref name="Truswell001"/>

==Quartenary Sub-Era==

===Pliestogene Period (1 800 000 - 000)===

====Pleistocene Epoch (1 800 000 - 10 000)====

====='''164 000 BP''':=====
Human ancestors in this world (South Africa) are, by this date, using fire to cook shellfish (mussells); have started using ochres; and, for general anthropological purposes, these ancestors have skills, technologies, and lifestyles of a kind that is classed as 'modern human'<ref>BORENSTEIN, Seth (2007) ''"Early Seafood, Makeup found in South Africa"'' see '''Yahoo News,''' 17 October 2007</ref>, 

====Holocene Epoch (10 000 - 000)====
By this Epoch, people (humans) were occupying, using, and living within the wet humid forests then prevalent in Melanesia.<ref>ALLEN, J., GOSDEN, C., WHITE, J.P. (1989) ''Human Pleistocene adaptations in the tropical island Pacific: recent evidence from New Island, a
Greater Australian outlier''. '''Antiquity'''. Volume 63. Pages 548–561</ref>. At this time, however, there were no large wet tropical forest in north-east Australia, and, instead, the 'rainforest' flora and fauna were largely preserved in riparian refuges, in a landscape that has been described as follows:

''"The palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that rainforest was unevenly distributed until 8300 BP, prior to which, much of the Atherton Tablelands was covered in sclerophyll woodland with patches of riparian rainforest in the deeper gullies"''<ref>COSGROVE, Richard; FIELD, Judith; & FERRIER, Äsa (2007) ''The Archaeology of Australia's Tropical Rainforests''. '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 251. Page 154.</ref>

=Chapter: Aboriginal Ecologies (130 000 - 1770?)=

====='''130 000''' BP:=====
Quanties of charcoal particles within river sediments leap upward, together with noticeable changes in the kinds of pollens most prevalent in those sediments.

These chacoal particles and pollen fossils document and record a significant increase in the burning of the biomass of the river catchments out of which sediment has fallen. Together this record may signal the first arrival of Aboriginal 'burning' and Aboriginal 'fire regimes' into north-east Australia's ecological mix.<ref>MOSS, P.T & KERSHAW, A. P (2000) ''"The last glacial cycle from the humid tropics of northeastern Australia: comparison of a terrestrial and marine record".'' '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Vol 155, Pages 155–176.</ref>

=Chapter: European Ecologies (1770 - 1860)=

=Chapter: Queensland State Ecologies (1860 - 1900)=

===='''1874:'''====
The first timeber cutters encroach upon the wet tropical forsts, setting up timber camps and cutting cedar along the Tully, Johnstone, Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 93</ref>

===='''1876'''====
====='''18761223:'''=====
Settlement of Cairns District begins around Trinity Bay, and the Queenslander reports Aboriginal conflict is 'very bad'<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 97</ref>

===='''1877'''====
James Mulligan ans party explore for gold and other minerals and, in the search, approach the western frings of the North-East Australia's wet tropical forests where they find a whole network of tracks linking Aboriginal campsites (or 'townships' as Mulligan callsthem):

''"A splendid track, the best native track I ever saw anywhere. There are roads off the main track to each of their townships, which consist of thatched gunyahs, big enought to hold five or six darkies. We counted eleven townships since we cam to the edge of the scrub, and we have only travelled four miles along it .. Their paths are well trodden, and we follow them sometimes for miles.."''<ref>quoted in LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 89</ref>

===='''1879'''====
=====18790830=====
Mulgrave River Goldfield is discovered, bringing a rush of prospectors swelling to three or four hundred people<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Pages 93, 271</ref>

===='''1880'''====
In the Queensland one 'settler' tells of the firm conviction amongst colonists that:

"their [Queensland Aboriginal peoples] stage of civilisation is too many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years behind our own to allow their race to thrive side by side with ours .. [and they] have learnt in their terrorto submit to anything that the conquering race may choose to do" <ref>quoted in REYNOLDS, H & MAY, D (1995) ''Queensland'' in MCGRATH (Ed''')Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown'''. Allen & Unwin. New South Wales. Pages 177, 180.</ref>

===='''1881'''====
Much of the best cedar on the Johnston and Daintree Rivers has been exhausted, and many timber cutters move up on to the tablelands behind Cairns.<ref name="LOOS001"> LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897''. Australian National University Press, Canberra.</ref>

===='''1883'''====
====='''18830900'''=====
Christie Palmerston discovers a number of patches of alluvial gold on the Rusell and Johnston Rivers, in the wet tropical forests between the tablelands and the coast, the 'slighest sign' of which brought a rush of European and Chinese prospectors.<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 271</ref>

=Chapter: Australian Nation Ecologies (1900 - 1989)=

<ref>FERRIER, Äsa (2006) Dr Eric Mjöbergs 1913 scientific exploration of North Queensland's rainforest region. Memoirs of Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series Vol 4. Number 1. Page xx </ref>

====1913====
=====19130400=====
Swedish naturalist and anthropologist, Eric Mjöberg, collects flora and fauna (including mammals) from the tropical forests within the vicinity of a large Aboriginal camp (Djirbal)on Cedar Creek [dx]. He later writes:

<blockquote>
''"Most of the trees in the rainforest were giants, which had developed enormous buttress roots. The intelligent natives, who make use of their environment in every possible way, produce their large, beautifully painted sheilds from these roots. They also use the roots in a signalling system. By hitting the roots hard, they produce a shivering noise that travels a long distance through the rainforest."'' <ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 175</ref></blockquote>

His Aboriginal companions pulled large pieces of bark from a rainforest evergreen flowering tree (''Calophyllum'' [dx] species) to make water carrying bags (which the local Djirbal people called 'nobra')[dx]<ref name="MJ001"/>. 

Eric Mjöberg observed and later noted that by this time no stone artefacts are being used by these 'stone age' people, with the exception of grinding stones made from large flat basalt rocks (of which he collected examples). 'Grinding stones' were still being used to prepare nuts, fruits and roots for eating, and for grinding ochre during the wet season. During the dry season, he notes, the larger 'grinding stones' are left behind peoples huts or placed in tree branches to await people's return, and, instead, smaller 'hammer stones' or 'top stones' are used in the grinding process and are more readily carried around in lawyer cane baskets.<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (19258) ''Beiträge zur kenntnis der Eigenborenen von Nord-Queensland.'' '''Archive für Anthropologie.''' Volume 20 Number 9. Page 118.</ref> 

Eric Mjöberg also specifically documented the extensive use Aboriginal [Djiribal] peoples at Cedar Creek [now Ravenshoe] were making of lawyer cane (Calamus Australis)

=====19130500=====
Eric Mjöberg, with Aboriginal companions as 'guides', explores southwards from Cedar Creek through the tropical forests collecting flora and fauna. His Aboriginal companions had advised him that when food was short around Cedar Creek, they'd walk their well beaten tracks through otherwise inaccessible forest, to fish for eel along the Tully River (dx). He later wrote:

<blockquote>
''"The rainforests we were travelling in were indeed thick and hard to get through. We stuck to the well-beaten native tracks they follow during their seasonal movements...On the third day we travelled through beautiful, dense, undisturbed rainforest. After a few hours we could see daylight filtering through the enormous trees and the roaring of a waterfall was getting louder. We had arrived at Tully Falls."''<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 195-197</ref></blockquote>

=====19130517=====
Eric Mjöberg climbs to the cold peak of Mount Belleden Kerr [dx], later reporting that his Aboriginal companions, at that time, refused to climb to the top as it was the home of the great spirit 'Murgalainya' [dx].<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 122</ref>

====1984====
=====19840319=====
Queensland State Minister for Environment, Martin Tenni, supports Douglas Shire Council's efforts to bulldoze a road through from Cape Tribulation to Wujal Wujal<ref>TOYNE, P (1994) '''The Reluctant Nation: Environment, law and politics in Australia. ''' ABC Books. Sydney. Page 70</ref> 

<blockquote>
''"Martin Tenni .. suggested in an interview with the Courier Mail newspaper that drug racketeers had exchanged kidnapped girls for heroin on lonely Cape Tribulation .. The road, he believed, would put an end to this."''</blockquote>

=Chapter: World Heritage Ecologies (1989 - 2050)=

=Conclusion=

=Attachments=

==Glossary==

'''Agathis''': a gymnosperm with the common name Kauri. See [[w:Agathis]]

'''Angiosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, angiosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are enclosed. Angiosperms are also known and referred to as the 'flowering plants' of the world. See [[w:Angiosperms]]

'''Complex mesophyll vine forests''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant [[w:complex mesophyll vine forests]]

'''Cryptogams''' : a convenient, though now taxonomically obsolete term used to refer to plants that reproduce by spores, or 'spore carrying plants' such as ferns, mosses, algae and fungus See [[w:cryptogams]].

'''Cycads''' : a gymosperm of a kind that was widespread during the Juriassic Period that with 'pinately compound leaves', sometimes confused with palms or ferms, the seeds for which contain a neurotoxin produced by blue-green algae. See [[w:cycads]]

'''Gondwana''': southern supercontinent that included most of the land masses of the southern hemisphere up until it started to detach and fragment during the Jurassic Period of the earths Mesozoic era. See [[w:Gondwana]]

'''Gymnosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, gymnosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are not enclosed but are, rather, exposed on the edge of a leaf blade or within a cone like structure. The term 'Gymnosperm' comes a Greek word (gumnospermos) meaning 'naked seeds'. See [[w:Gymnosperms]]

'''Ilex''' : genus of angiosperms also known as Holly, with approximately 600 species around the world, ancesteral species of which appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. Their small flowers are pollenated, primarily, by bees and/or insects and they bear small fruit. See [[w:Ilex]]

'''Olacaceae''': an angiosperm family of woody plants found presently found throughout the tropical parts of the world. See [[w:Olacaceae]]

'''Podocarpaceae''': see Podocarps below

'''Podocarps''' : a gymnosperm consisting of large group of southern conifers or evergreens. See [[w:Podocarps]]

'''Proteaceae''' : family of angiosperms with approximately 80 genera, which occurrs primarily in the southern hemisphere, including the Banksia and others with striking and distinctive flowers .. believed to be an angiosperm that finds its origins in the Gondwana supercontninent, now occurring on all those lands masses that were once part of Gondwana .. identifiable ancestor species for present day Proteacea appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. See [[w:Proteaceae]]

'''Sapindaceae''': angiosperm family also known as 'soap berries', which presently occur in temperate to tropical regions of the world and often have milky white sap. Lychees' rambutan, guarana are some of the more notable fruit bearing members of this family. See [[w:Sapindaceae]]

'''Simple notophyll vine forest''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant, a sample of which is the simple notphyll vine forest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River, North-East Queensland [[w:Simple notophyll vine forest]]

'''Taxa''' : plural of taxon, being a taxonomic unit used to designate an organism or group of organisms - in a hierachical naming scheme. See [[w:Taxon]]

==Annotated List of Places==

'''Atherton Tablelands''' : location of relict Agathis (Kauri) forests, being a present day, modern assemblage of plants with the same basic compostion as existed in the northern New South Wales of the Jurassic. See also [[w:Atherton Tableland]]

'''Noah Creek''' : location of simple notophyll vine forest which is present day's closest analogue to the forests of this kind that existed during the Eocene epoch (greater than 38 000 000 years ago) at present day Anglesey, Victoria. See also [[w:Daintree National Park]]

==Annotated List of Ecological Communities==

==Annotated List of Flora and Fauna==

''Agathis robusta'' : smooth barked agathis decended from the agathis prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now found on the Atherton tablelands, north-east Australia [[w:Agathis robusta]]

''Calamus Australis'' : also known as lawyer cane, used extensively by the Aboriginal peoples of the wet tropics world heritage area to make baskets, traps, to haft axes etc [[w:Calamus]]

''Lepidozamia hopei'': cycad descended from the cycads prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now endemic to north-east Australia's wet tropical forests. See [[w:Lepidozamia hopei]]

''Nypa fruticans'' : palm descended from Nypa ancestoral species in the Eocene, presently occurring South-East Asia and Northern Australia, being the only palm now considered to be a mangrove growing in salty mangrove conditions See [[w:Nypa fruticans]]

==Annotated List of Aboriginal Language Groups==

=References=
<references/>

[[it:Foresta pluviale]]
{{alphabetical|N}}

Natural and Cultural History of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests

2008-10-14T18:06:43Z

165.155.192.68: /* [insert Map of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests] */

Under provisions of the World Heritage Convention, in 1989, the United Nation's World Heritage Committee inscribed 900 000 hectares of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests on to the World Heritage list as being heritage of outstanding universal value to humankind.

This, then, is a history of this universally significant heritage. It is a natural and cultural history that reaches back to Gondwana, moves through time into the present, then onwards, 50 years hence, into a predicted globally warmer future. 
 

====[insert Map of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests]====

=Chapter: Mesozoic Era (290 000 000 - 65 000 000)=
,mma suck hairy morchacas

==Permian Period (290 000 000 - 248 200 000)== u suck hairy morchacas

==Triassic Period (248 200 000 - 205 700 000)==

==Jurassic Period (205 700 000 - 142 000 000)==
This is a period of globally warm temperatures, and at latitudes higher (further towards the poles) than 45 degrees (from the equator) rainfall is high and there are extensive swamps (evidenced in the present by large coal deposits)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''205 700 000''':=====
What is presently called Australia, is, at this time, part of a single continent (Gondwana) comprised of an amalgamation of present Australia, Africa, South America, Madagascar, India, and Antarctica.<ref name="Adam001">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests.''' Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 138</ref> 

====='''175 000 000''':=====
At the location of present day northern New South Wales (Talbragar Fish Beds), there is a forested landscape dominated by ''Agathis'' (ie Kauri') together with podocarps (ie southern conifers), and in the understory are cycads, ferns, and tree ferns. Around the lake is a zone of seed ferns. Present day relict gymnosperm ''Agathis'' (Kauri) forests on the Atherton Tablelands represent a modern assemblage of plants with the same basic composition as the Jurassic (Gondwana) forests covering present day northern New South Wales (ie Podocarps [southern conifers] growing among the Kauri pines [''Agathis robusta''], with tree like cycads [''Lepidozamia hopei''] in the understory.<ref>WHITE, M.E (1986) '''The greening of Gondwana'''. Reed. Sydney.</ref>

====='''160 000 000''':=====
West Gondwana (present Africa and South America) start to seperate from East Gondwana (Australia, Antarctic, India, and Madagascar), with South America and Antarctic still connected for a while yet.<ref name="Adam001"/> Various fragments of the northern margin of the present Australian plate also begin to detach and drift northwards to form an achipelago of terrestrial habitats (micro-continental fragments) between Gondwana and that other more northern continent, Laurasia <ref name="Adam002"/>

==Cretaceous Period (142 000 000 - 65 000 000)==
This period (the Cretaceous) is a time of high global temperatures and high sea-levels, such that most of present Australia is covered by shallow seas, and the present land surface is divided into three major 'islands'.<ref name="Truswell001">TRUSWELL, E.M & WILFORD, G.E (1985) ''The Setting: Changing Australian environments throughout geological time'', in RICH, P.V; VAN TETS, G.F; & KNIGHT, F (Eds) '''Kadimakara: Extinct vertevrates of Australia'''. Pioneer Design Studio. Victoria</ref>

The remaining mass of what was Gondwana, still well south of present locations, allow warm oceanic currents to flow to high latitudes, with what would now be regarded as as tropical and sub-tropical climates southwards of 45 degrees down to 60 degrees south, and warm wet conditions reaching so far south that even the south polar regions have a relatively mild climate.<ref>ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 142</ref>

===Lower Cretaceous Epoch (142 000 000 - 97 500 000)===

====Neocomian Stage (142 000 000 - 125 000 000)====
The world's first evolutionary burst of angiosperms (see Glossary) occurs at this time.<ref name="Truswell">TRUSWELL, E.W (1990) "''Australian Rainforests: The 100 Million Year Record''", in WEBB, L.J & KIKKAWA, J (Eds) '''Australian Tropical Rainforests: Science, Values, Meaning'''. CSIRO Publications. Melbourne</ref>. This evolutionary burst produced pollen of a type now (in the present) referred to by the fossil name ''Clavatipellonites''. These ''Clavatipellonites'' appear and spread around the world (as it was then), though they don't yet reach Australia (part of East Gondwana).<ref name="Truswell"/>

====='''128 000 000''':=====
India (tectonic plate)splits away from present West Australia and moves to the north east.<ref name="Adam002">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 139</ref>

====Barremian Stage (125 000 000 - 119 000 000)====

====Aptian Stage (119 000 000 - 113 000 000)====
The world's first wind pollenation dependent angiosperms appear in present tropical west Africa (now seperated from East Gondwana) spreading poleward. The pollens of these plants are smaller, radially symmetrical grains, generally succeeding and replacing the ''Clavatipellonite'' pollens (and those plants communities that produced these pollens) around the world during this epoch., though, again (similar to the delay in the spread of the ''Clavatipellonites''), they do not seem to reach Australia (part of East Gondwana) at this time.<ref name="Truswell"/>

====Albian Stage (113 000 000 - 97 500 000)====
It is during this epoch that the world reaches its peak or highest global temperatures in over 500 million years (ie the highest temperature interval in the whole of the Phanerozoic Eon)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

It is first during this stage that the world's first angiosperms (represented in the fossil record by the ''Clavatipellonites'') reach Australia and enter the Australian ecological mixes of the time, somewhat later than other parts of the world.<ref name="Truswell"/><ref name="Adam004">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 144</ref> 

====='''100 000 000''':=====
Some of the northern fragments from the margin of the Australian plate, forming an archipelago between East Gondwana and Laurasia (present Burma and West Thailand) collide with the Laurasian Indo-China block (present east Thailand and Indo-China) <ref name="Adam002"/>

====='''95 000 000''':=====
East Gondwana (including present Australia) becomes further fragmented, with two further plates, present Lord Howe Rise/New Zealand and Antarctica coming into existence.<ref name="Adam002"/>

===Upper Cretaceous Epoch (97 500 000 - 65 000 000)===

====Cenomanian Stage (97 500 000 - 91 000 000)====

====='''80 000 000'':=====
The present Australian tectonic plate and the New Zealand tectonic plate seperate relatively rapidly (on a geological timescale) from this date.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Turonian Stage (91 000 000 - 88 500 000)====

====Senonian Stage (88 500 000 - 65 000 000)====
There appears in Australia (and the associated Australian microfossil pollen record) plants might be considered ancesteral, or somehow related to plants that now appear in present day Australian forests including Proteaceae, Ilex and Nothofagus <ref name="Martin001">MARTIN, H.A (1978) ''Evolution of the Australian and vegetation through the Tertiary: evidence from pollen.'' '''Alcheringa'''. Volume 2. Pages 181 - 202.</ref>

=Chapter: Cenozoic Era (65 000 000 years to 000 000)=

==Tertiary Sub-Era==
From the beginning of this sub-era (the Teritary), Australia's 'Great Dividing Range' has formed and stretches along almost the whole of the east coast of present Australia, constituting a highlands within a continent of otherwise relatively low relief. This range, in combination with the 'Great Escarpment' that suddenly drops off to the east for almost the entire length of the range, is a major landscape feature within Australia which will, for millions of years to come always experience relatively high rainfalls; will influence continental climatic patterns; and will effect future distributions and survivals of Gondwana descended flora and fauna.<ref name="Adam003">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 141.</ref> 

Also during this sub-era there are 'marine incursions' in present Southern Australia, flooding what is now the Nullabor Plain and the lower Murray Basin. <ref name="Adam003"/>

===Paleaogene Period (65 000 000 - 23 800 000)===
Present Australia is still at high altitudes (much closer to the south pole than in the present), yet it remains relatively warm and wet, with rain-bearing clouds extending well inland (and, there is little or no ice in Antarctica).<ref name="Kemp001">KEMP, E.M. (1978) ''Tertiary climatic evolution and vegetation hisotry in the southeast Indian Ocean region''. '''Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 24. Pages 169-208.</ref>

====Palaeocene Epoch (65 000 000 - 54 800 000)====
An abundance and diversity of cryptogams (ie ferns, mosses, algae & fungi: see Glossary) thrive in continuing moist conditions in Australia generally, and along the Great Dividing Range in particular.<ref name="Lange001">LANGE, R.T (1982) ''Australian Tertiary vegetation: Evidence and Interpretation'', in SMITH, J.M.B (Ed) '''A History of Australasian vegetation'''. Mgraw-Hill. Sydney. Pages 44-89.</ref>. Gymnosperms still dominate the plant communities, but during this epoch there is also a significant increase in the prominence of Proteaceae (see Glossary) ancestors in particular.<ref>MARTIN, H,A (1987) ''Cainozoic history of the vegetation and climate of the Lachlan River region, New South Wales.'' '''Proceedings of Linnean Society of New South Wales'''. Volume 109. Pages 213-257.</ref>.

====Eocene Epoch (54 800 000 - 33 700 000)====
The sea-way between Australia and the Antarctica has begun to widen but it is still shallow, and there is therefore still relatively small differences in ocean temperatures from the equator to the high latitudes, with the climate over Australia still being warm and wet, though with a heavier winter rainy season in the south-east.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

The Australian continent is still covered, generally, with cool to warm, moist, closed forests, but the plant communities/assemblages themselves change notceably from those of the previous epoch, with a dropping off in the earlier emergent prominence of the Proteaceae, and an associated emergence of an even greater diversity of angiosperm taxa<ref name="Martin001"/> including tropical Olacaceae ancestors (now represently by a single species in present north-east Australia's wet tropical forests), ancestors (Cupanieae tribe)of the Sapindaceae, plus a salt water palm now known as Nypa (beginnings of present mangrove plant communities and eco-systems, presently represented in Australia by ''Nypa fruticans'').<ref name="Lange001"/>

The climate of the southern parts of Australia were almost tropical, the equivalent of which is now found in northern Australia, including, particularly, North-East Australia's wet tropical forests<ref>CHRISTOPHEL, D.C & GREENWOOD, D.R (1988) ''A comparison of Australian tropical rainforest and Tertiary fossil leaf-beds''. '''Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia'''. Volume 15. Pages 139-148.</ref>:

i. at what is now Anglesea, Victoria (Australia), during this epoch, there was simple notophyll vine forest of a kind now found in north-east Australia's wet tropical forests (thier closed analogue being the rainforest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River)

ii. what is now Golden Grove, South Australia, during this epoch, there was complex mesophyll vine forests of ancestor species that are presently represented within, and restricted to the complex mesophyll vine forests of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests.

====='''45 000 000''':=====
Present Australian tectonic plate begins to move rapidly (on a geological timescale) northwards, seperating from present Antarctica and seperated by a shallow sea. At the same time the spreading between present India and Australia ceases, and the two seperate plates 'coalese' to form an Indo-Australian Plate.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Oligocene Epoch (33 700 000 - 23 800 000)====
Circumpolar oceanic circulation developes during this Epoch, effectively reducing the transfer of heat from the equator southwards, which results in some cooling and lower rainfalls in the south of present Australian continent.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

====='''30 000 000''':=====
As the present Australian continent drifts northwards, it passes over a fixed hot-spot in the underlying mantle, with Australia's oldest central volcanoes erupting in the north at this time, with later, younger central volcanoes erupting progressively southwards within the Australian continent.<ref>OLLIER, C.D. (1986) ''Early Landform Evolution'', in JEANS, D.N (ed) '''Australia - A Geography. Volume 1: The natural environment'''. Sydney University Press, Sydney. Pages 97-116.</ref>

===Neogene Period (23 800 000 - 1 800 000)===

====Miocene Epoch (23 800 000 - 5 300 000)====

====='''15 000 000''':=====
Present Australia's northward drift continues and, at this time, the Australian plate collides with the South-East Asian plate, ending 30 million years (ie 45 000 000 - 15 000 000) of isolation, and marking the first contact between Australia and South-East Asia.<ref name="Adam002"/>

At the same time (15 million years ago) major change occurrs in the Australian climate, with a pronouncing 'drying' accompanying the build up of the Antarctic ice-cap, and the associated southern hemisphere wind circulation starting to approach those of the present.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====Pliocene Epoch (5 300 000 - 1 800 000)====
At the beginning of this Epoch, the Australian continent is marked by it's aridity, which spreads northwards from the south as a belt of anticyclonic wind circulation developes (driven by the expansion of the antarctic ice cap) closer migrates northwards from the higher latitudes.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''2 000 000''':=====
Seasonal patterns of variation in climate approximating present day patterns, take hold of the Australian continent from this date onwards, into the present..<ref name="Truswell001"/>

==Quartenary Sub-Era==

===Pliestogene Period (1 800 000 - 000)===

====Pleistocene Epoch (1 800 000 - 10 000)====

====='''164 000 BP''':=====
Human ancestors in this world (South Africa) are, by this date, using fire to cook shellfish (mussells); have started using ochres; and, for general anthropological purposes, these ancestors have skills, technologies, and lifestyles of a kind that is classed as 'modern human'<ref>BORENSTEIN, Seth (2007) ''"Early Seafood, Makeup found in South Africa"'' see '''Yahoo News,''' 17 October 2007</ref>, 

====Holocene Epoch (10 000 - 000)====
By this Epoch, people (humans) were occupying, using, and living within the wet humid forests then prevalent in Melanesia.<ref>ALLEN, J., GOSDEN, C., WHITE, J.P. (1989) ''Human Pleistocene adaptations in the tropical island Pacific: recent evidence from New Island, a
Greater Australian outlier''. '''Antiquity'''. Volume 63. Pages 548–561</ref>. At this time, however, there were no large wet tropical forest in north-east Australia, and, instead, the 'rainforest' flora and fauna were largely preserved in riparian refuges, in a landscape that has been described as follows:

''"The palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that rainforest was unevenly distributed until 8300 BP, prior to which, much of the Atherton Tablelands was covered in sclerophyll woodland with patches of riparian rainforest in the deeper gullies"''<ref>COSGROVE, Richard; FIELD, Judith; & FERRIER, Äsa (2007) ''The Archaeology of Australia's Tropical Rainforests''. '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 251. Page 154.</ref>

=Chapter: Aboriginal Ecologies (130 000 - 1770?)=

====='''130 000''' BP:=====
Quanties of charcoal particles within river sediments leap upward, together with noticeable changes in the kinds of pollens most prevalent in those sediments.

These chacoal particles and pollen fossils document and record a significant increase in the burning of the biomass of the river catchments out of which sediment has fallen. Together this record may signal the first arrival of Aboriginal 'burning' and Aboriginal 'fire regimes' into north-east Australia's ecological mix.<ref>MOSS, P.T & KERSHAW, A. P (2000) ''"The last glacial cycle from the humid tropics of northeastern Australia: comparison of a terrestrial and marine record".'' '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Vol 155, Pages 155–176.</ref>

=Chapter: European Ecologies (1770 - 1860)=

=Chapter: Queensland State Ecologies (1860 - 1900)=

===='''1874:'''====
The first timeber cutters encroach upon the wet tropical forsts, setting up timber camps and cutting cedar along the Tully, Johnstone, Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 93</ref>

===='''1876'''====
====='''18761223:'''=====
Settlement of Cairns District begins around Trinity Bay, and the Queenslander reports Aboriginal conflict is 'very bad'<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 97</ref>

===='''1877'''====
James Mulligan ans party explore for gold and other minerals and, in the search, approach the western frings of the North-East Australia's wet tropical forests where they find a whole network of tracks linking Aboriginal campsites (or 'townships' as Mulligan callsthem):

''"A splendid track, the best native track I ever saw anywhere. There are roads off the main track to each of their townships, which consist of thatched gunyahs, big enought to hold five or six darkies. We counted eleven townships since we cam to the edge of the scrub, and we have only travelled four miles along it .. Their paths are well trodden, and we follow them sometimes for miles.."''<ref>quoted in LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 89</ref>

===='''1879'''====
=====18790830=====
Mulgrave River Goldfield is discovered, bringing a rush of prospectors swelling to three or four hundred people<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Pages 93, 271</ref>

===='''1880'''====
In the Queensland one 'settler' tells of the firm conviction amongst colonists that:

"their [Queensland Aboriginal peoples] stage of civilisation is too many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years behind our own to allow their race to thrive side by side with ours .. [and they] have learnt in their terrorto submit to anything that the conquering race may choose to do" <ref>quoted in REYNOLDS, H & MAY, D (1995) ''Queensland'' in MCGRATH (Ed''')Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown'''. Allen & Unwin. New South Wales. Pages 177, 180.</ref>

===='''1881'''====
Much of the best cedar on the Johnston and Daintree Rivers has been exhausted, and many timber cutters move up on to the tablelands behind Cairns.<ref name="LOOS001"> LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897''. Australian National University Press, Canberra.</ref>

===='''1883'''====
====='''18830900'''=====
Christie Palmerston discovers a number of patches of alluvial gold on the Rusell and Johnston Rivers, in the wet tropical forests between the tablelands and the coast, the 'slighest sign' of which brought a rush of European and Chinese prospectors.<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 271</ref>

=Chapter: Australian Nation Ecologies (1900 - 1989)=

<ref>FERRIER, Äsa (2006) Dr Eric Mjöbergs 1913 scientific exploration of North Queensland's rainforest region. Memoirs of Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series Vol 4. Number 1. Page xx </ref>

====1913====
=====19130400=====
Swedish naturalist and anthropologist, Eric Mjöberg, collects flora and fauna (including mammals) from the tropical forests within the vicinity of a large Aboriginal camp (Djirbal)on Cedar Creek [dx]. He later writes:

<blockquote>
''"Most of the trees in the rainforest were giants, which had developed enormous buttress roots. The intelligent natives, who make use of their environment in every possible way, produce their large, beautifully painted sheilds from these roots. They also use the roots in a signalling system. By hitting the roots hard, they produce a shivering noise that travels a long distance through the rainforest."'' <ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 175</ref></blockquote>

His Aboriginal companions pulled large pieces of bark from a rainforest evergreen flowering tree (''Calophyllum'' [dx] species) to make water carrying bags (which the local Djirbal people called 'nobra')[dx]<ref name="MJ001"/>. 

Eric Mjöberg observed and later noted that by this time no stone artefacts are being used by these 'stone age' people, with the exception of grinding stones made from large flat basalt rocks (of which he collected examples). 'Grinding stones' were still being used to prepare nuts, fruits and roots for eating, and for grinding ochre during the wet season. During the dry season, he notes, the larger 'grinding stones' are left behind peoples huts or placed in tree branches to await people's return, and, instead, smaller 'hammer stones' or 'top stones' are used in the grinding process and are more readily carried around in lawyer cane baskets.<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (19258) ''Beiträge zur kenntnis der Eigenborenen von Nord-Queensland.'' '''Archive für Anthropologie.''' Volume 20 Number 9. Page 118.</ref> 

Eric Mjöberg also specifically documented the extensive use Aboriginal [Djiribal] peoples at Cedar Creek [now Ravenshoe] were making of lawyer cane (Calamus Australis)

=====19130500=====
Eric Mjöberg, with Aboriginal companions as 'guides', explores southwards from Cedar Creek through the tropical forests collecting flora and fauna. His Aboriginal companions had advised him that when food was short around Cedar Creek, they'd walk their well beaten tracks through otherwise inaccessible forest, to fish for eel along the Tully River (dx). He later wrote:

<blockquote>
''"The rainforests we were travelling in were indeed thick and hard to get through. We stuck to the well-beaten native tracks they follow during their seasonal movements...On the third day we travelled through beautiful, dense, undisturbed rainforest. After a few hours we could see daylight filtering through the enormous trees and the roaring of a waterfall was getting louder. We had arrived at Tully Falls."''<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 195-197</ref></blockquote>

=====19130517=====
Eric Mjöberg climbs to the cold peak of Mount Belleden Kerr [dx], later reporting that his Aboriginal companions, at that time, refused to climb to the top as it was the home of the great spirit 'Murgalainya' [dx].<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 122</ref>

====1984====
=====19840319=====
Queensland State Minister for Environment, Martin Tenni, supports Douglas Shire Council's efforts to bulldoze a road through from Cape Tribulation to Wujal Wujal<ref>TOYNE, P (1994) '''The Reluctant Nation: Environment, law and politics in Australia. ''' ABC Books. Sydney. Page 70</ref> 

<blockquote>
''"Martin Tenni .. suggested in an interview with the Courier Mail newspaper that drug racketeers had exchanged kidnapped girls for heroin on lonely Cape Tribulation .. The road, he believed, would put an end to this."''</blockquote>

=Chapter: World Heritage Ecologies (1989 - 2050)=

=Conclusion=

=Attachments=

==Glossary==

'''Agathis''': a gymnosperm with the common name Kauri. See [[w:Agathis]]

'''Angiosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, angiosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are enclosed. Angiosperms are also known and referred to as the 'flowering plants' of the world. See [[w:Angiosperms]]

'''Complex mesophyll vine forests''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant [[w:complex mesophyll vine forests]]

'''Cryptogams''' : a convenient, though now taxonomically obsolete term used to refer to plants that reproduce by spores, or 'spore carrying plants' such as ferns, mosses, algae and fungus See [[w:cryptogams]].

'''Cycads''' : a gymosperm of a kind that was widespread during the Juriassic Period that with 'pinately compound leaves', sometimes confused with palms or ferms, the seeds for which contain a neurotoxin produced by blue-green algae. See [[w:cycads]]

'''Gondwana''': southern supercontinent that included most of the land masses of the southern hemisphere up until it started to detach and fragment during the Jurassic Period of the earths Mesozoic era. See [[w:Gondwana]]

'''Gymnosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, gymnosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are not enclosed but are, rather, exposed on the edge of a leaf blade or within a cone like structure. The term 'Gymnosperm' comes a Greek word (gumnospermos) meaning 'naked seeds'. See [[w:Gymnosperms]]

'''Ilex''' : genus of angiosperms also known as Holly, with approximately 600 species around the world, ancesteral species of which appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. Their small flowers are pollenated, primarily, by bees and/or insects and they bear small fruit. See [[w:Ilex]]

'''Olacaceae''': an angiosperm family of woody plants found presently found throughout the tropical parts of the world. See [[w:Olacaceae]]

'''Podocarpaceae''': see Podocarps below

'''Podocarps''' : a gymnosperm consisting of large group of southern conifers or evergreens. See [[w:Podocarps]]

'''Proteaceae''' : family of angiosperms with approximately 80 genera, which occurrs primarily in the southern hemisphere, including the Banksia and others with striking and distinctive flowers .. believed to be an angiosperm that finds its origins in the Gondwana supercontninent, now occurring on all those lands masses that were once part of Gondwana .. identifiable ancestor species for present day Proteacea appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. See [[w:Proteaceae]]

'''Sapindaceae''': angiosperm family also known as 'soap berries', which presently occur in temperate to tropical regions of the world and often have milky white sap. Lychees' rambutan, guarana are some of the more notable fruit bearing members of this family. See [[w:Sapindaceae]]

'''Simple notophyll vine forest''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant, a sample of which is the simple notphyll vine forest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River, North-East Queensland [[w:Simple notophyll vine forest]]

'''Taxa''' : plural of taxon, being a taxonomic unit used to designate an organism or group of organisms - in a hierachical naming scheme. See [[w:Taxon]]

==Annotated List of Places==

'''Atherton Tablelands''' : location of relict Agathis (Kauri) forests, being a present day, modern assemblage of plants with the same basic compostion as existed in the northern New South Wales of the Jurassic. See also [[w:Atherton Tableland]]

'''Noah Creek''' : location of simple notophyll vine forest which is present day's closest analogue to the forests of this kind that existed during the Eocene epoch (greater than 38 000 000 years ago) at present day Anglesey, Victoria. See also [[w:Daintree National Park]]

==Annotated List of Ecological Communities==

==Annotated List of Flora and Fauna==

''Agathis robusta'' : smooth barked agathis decended from the agathis prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now found on the Atherton tablelands, north-east Australia [[w:Agathis robusta]]

''Calamus Australis'' : also known as lawyer cane, used extensively by the Aboriginal peoples of the wet tropics world heritage area to make baskets, traps, to haft axes etc [[w:Calamus]]

''Lepidozamia hopei'': cycad descended from the cycads prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now endemic to north-east Australia's wet tropical forests. See [[w:Lepidozamia hopei]]

''Nypa fruticans'' : palm descended from Nypa ancestoral species in the Eocene, presently occurring South-East Asia and Northern Australia, being the only palm now considered to be a mangrove growing in salty mangrove conditions See [[w:Nypa fruticans]]

==Annotated List of Aboriginal Language Groups==

=References=
<references/>

[[it:Foresta pluviale]]
{{alphabetical|N}}

Natural and Cultural History of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests

2008-10-14T18:06:02Z

165.155.192.68:

Under provisions of the World Heritage Convention, in 1989, the United Nation's World Heritage Committee inscribed 900 000 hectares of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests on to the World Heritage list as being heritage of outstanding universal value to humankind.

This, then, is a history of this universally significant heritage. It is a natural and cultural history that reaches back to Gondwana, moves through time into the present, then onwards, 50 years hence, into a predicted globally warmer future. 
 

====[insert Map of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests]====

=Chapter: Mesozoic Era (290 000 000 - 65 000 000)= u suck hairy morchacas

==Permian Period (290 000 000 - 248 200 000)== u suck hairy morchacas

==Triassic Period (248 200 000 - 205 700 000)==

==Jurassic Period (205 700 000 - 142 000 000)==
This is a period of globally warm temperatures, and at latitudes higher (further towards the poles) than 45 degrees (from the equator) rainfall is high and there are extensive swamps (evidenced in the present by large coal deposits)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''205 700 000''':=====
What is presently called Australia, is, at this time, part of a single continent (Gondwana) comprised of an amalgamation of present Australia, Africa, South America, Madagascar, India, and Antarctica.<ref name="Adam001">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests.''' Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 138</ref> 

====='''175 000 000''':=====
At the location of present day northern New South Wales (Talbragar Fish Beds), there is a forested landscape dominated by ''Agathis'' (ie Kauri') together with podocarps (ie southern conifers), and in the understory are cycads, ferns, and tree ferns. Around the lake is a zone of seed ferns. Present day relict gymnosperm ''Agathis'' (Kauri) forests on the Atherton Tablelands represent a modern assemblage of plants with the same basic composition as the Jurassic (Gondwana) forests covering present day northern New South Wales (ie Podocarps [southern conifers] growing among the Kauri pines [''Agathis robusta''], with tree like cycads [''Lepidozamia hopei''] in the understory.<ref>WHITE, M.E (1986) '''The greening of Gondwana'''. Reed. Sydney.</ref>

====='''160 000 000''':=====
West Gondwana (present Africa and South America) start to seperate from East Gondwana (Australia, Antarctic, India, and Madagascar), with South America and Antarctic still connected for a while yet.<ref name="Adam001"/> Various fragments of the northern margin of the present Australian plate also begin to detach and drift northwards to form an achipelago of terrestrial habitats (micro-continental fragments) between Gondwana and that other more northern continent, Laurasia <ref name="Adam002"/>

==Cretaceous Period (142 000 000 - 65 000 000)==
This period (the Cretaceous) is a time of high global temperatures and high sea-levels, such that most of present Australia is covered by shallow seas, and the present land surface is divided into three major 'islands'.<ref name="Truswell001">TRUSWELL, E.M & WILFORD, G.E (1985) ''The Setting: Changing Australian environments throughout geological time'', in RICH, P.V; VAN TETS, G.F; & KNIGHT, F (Eds) '''Kadimakara: Extinct vertevrates of Australia'''. Pioneer Design Studio. Victoria</ref>

The remaining mass of what was Gondwana, still well south of present locations, allow warm oceanic currents to flow to high latitudes, with what would now be regarded as as tropical and sub-tropical climates southwards of 45 degrees down to 60 degrees south, and warm wet conditions reaching so far south that even the south polar regions have a relatively mild climate.<ref>ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 142</ref>

===Lower Cretaceous Epoch (142 000 000 - 97 500 000)===

====Neocomian Stage (142 000 000 - 125 000 000)====
The world's first evolutionary burst of angiosperms (see Glossary) occurs at this time.<ref name="Truswell">TRUSWELL, E.W (1990) "''Australian Rainforests: The 100 Million Year Record''", in WEBB, L.J & KIKKAWA, J (Eds) '''Australian Tropical Rainforests: Science, Values, Meaning'''. CSIRO Publications. Melbourne</ref>. This evolutionary burst produced pollen of a type now (in the present) referred to by the fossil name ''Clavatipellonites''. These ''Clavatipellonites'' appear and spread around the world (as it was then), though they don't yet reach Australia (part of East Gondwana).<ref name="Truswell"/>

====='''128 000 000''':=====
India (tectonic plate)splits away from present West Australia and moves to the north east.<ref name="Adam002">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 139</ref>

====Barremian Stage (125 000 000 - 119 000 000)====

====Aptian Stage (119 000 000 - 113 000 000)====
The world's first wind pollenation dependent angiosperms appear in present tropical west Africa (now seperated from East Gondwana) spreading poleward. The pollens of these plants are smaller, radially symmetrical grains, generally succeeding and replacing the ''Clavatipellonite'' pollens (and those plants communities that produced these pollens) around the world during this epoch., though, again (similar to the delay in the spread of the ''Clavatipellonites''), they do not seem to reach Australia (part of East Gondwana) at this time.<ref name="Truswell"/>

====Albian Stage (113 000 000 - 97 500 000)====
It is during this epoch that the world reaches its peak or highest global temperatures in over 500 million years (ie the highest temperature interval in the whole of the Phanerozoic Eon)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

It is first during this stage that the world's first angiosperms (represented in the fossil record by the ''Clavatipellonites'') reach Australia and enter the Australian ecological mixes of the time, somewhat later than other parts of the world.<ref name="Truswell"/><ref name="Adam004">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 144</ref> 

====='''100 000 000''':=====
Some of the northern fragments from the margin of the Australian plate, forming an archipelago between East Gondwana and Laurasia (present Burma and West Thailand) collide with the Laurasian Indo-China block (present east Thailand and Indo-China) <ref name="Adam002"/>

====='''95 000 000''':=====
East Gondwana (including present Australia) becomes further fragmented, with two further plates, present Lord Howe Rise/New Zealand and Antarctica coming into existence.<ref name="Adam002"/>

===Upper Cretaceous Epoch (97 500 000 - 65 000 000)===

====Cenomanian Stage (97 500 000 - 91 000 000)====

====='''80 000 000'':=====
The present Australian tectonic plate and the New Zealand tectonic plate seperate relatively rapidly (on a geological timescale) from this date.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Turonian Stage (91 000 000 - 88 500 000)====

====Senonian Stage (88 500 000 - 65 000 000)====
There appears in Australia (and the associated Australian microfossil pollen record) plants might be considered ancesteral, or somehow related to plants that now appear in present day Australian forests including Proteaceae, Ilex and Nothofagus <ref name="Martin001">MARTIN, H.A (1978) ''Evolution of the Australian and vegetation through the Tertiary: evidence from pollen.'' '''Alcheringa'''. Volume 2. Pages 181 - 202.</ref>

=Chapter: Cenozoic Era (65 000 000 years to 000 000)=

==Tertiary Sub-Era==
From the beginning of this sub-era (the Teritary), Australia's 'Great Dividing Range' has formed and stretches along almost the whole of the east coast of present Australia, constituting a highlands within a continent of otherwise relatively low relief. This range, in combination with the 'Great Escarpment' that suddenly drops off to the east for almost the entire length of the range, is a major landscape feature within Australia which will, for millions of years to come always experience relatively high rainfalls; will influence continental climatic patterns; and will effect future distributions and survivals of Gondwana descended flora and fauna.<ref name="Adam003">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 141.</ref> 

Also during this sub-era there are 'marine incursions' in present Southern Australia, flooding what is now the Nullabor Plain and the lower Murray Basin. <ref name="Adam003"/>

===Paleaogene Period (65 000 000 - 23 800 000)===
Present Australia is still at high altitudes (much closer to the south pole than in the present), yet it remains relatively warm and wet, with rain-bearing clouds extending well inland (and, there is little or no ice in Antarctica).<ref name="Kemp001">KEMP, E.M. (1978) ''Tertiary climatic evolution and vegetation hisotry in the southeast Indian Ocean region''. '''Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 24. Pages 169-208.</ref>

====Palaeocene Epoch (65 000 000 - 54 800 000)====
An abundance and diversity of cryptogams (ie ferns, mosses, algae & fungi: see Glossary) thrive in continuing moist conditions in Australia generally, and along the Great Dividing Range in particular.<ref name="Lange001">LANGE, R.T (1982) ''Australian Tertiary vegetation: Evidence and Interpretation'', in SMITH, J.M.B (Ed) '''A History of Australasian vegetation'''. Mgraw-Hill. Sydney. Pages 44-89.</ref>. Gymnosperms still dominate the plant communities, but during this epoch there is also a significant increase in the prominence of Proteaceae (see Glossary) ancestors in particular.<ref>MARTIN, H,A (1987) ''Cainozoic history of the vegetation and climate of the Lachlan River region, New South Wales.'' '''Proceedings of Linnean Society of New South Wales'''. Volume 109. Pages 213-257.</ref>.

====Eocene Epoch (54 800 000 - 33 700 000)====
The sea-way between Australia and the Antarctica has begun to widen but it is still shallow, and there is therefore still relatively small differences in ocean temperatures from the equator to the high latitudes, with the climate over Australia still being warm and wet, though with a heavier winter rainy season in the south-east.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

The Australian continent is still covered, generally, with cool to warm, moist, closed forests, but the plant communities/assemblages themselves change notceably from those of the previous epoch, with a dropping off in the earlier emergent prominence of the Proteaceae, and an associated emergence of an even greater diversity of angiosperm taxa<ref name="Martin001"/> including tropical Olacaceae ancestors (now represently by a single species in present north-east Australia's wet tropical forests), ancestors (Cupanieae tribe)of the Sapindaceae, plus a salt water palm now known as Nypa (beginnings of present mangrove plant communities and eco-systems, presently represented in Australia by ''Nypa fruticans'').<ref name="Lange001"/>

The climate of the southern parts of Australia were almost tropical, the equivalent of which is now found in northern Australia, including, particularly, North-East Australia's wet tropical forests<ref>CHRISTOPHEL, D.C & GREENWOOD, D.R (1988) ''A comparison of Australian tropical rainforest and Tertiary fossil leaf-beds''. '''Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia'''. Volume 15. Pages 139-148.</ref>:

i. at what is now Anglesea, Victoria (Australia), during this epoch, there was simple notophyll vine forest of a kind now found in north-east Australia's wet tropical forests (thier closed analogue being the rainforest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River)

ii. what is now Golden Grove, South Australia, during this epoch, there was complex mesophyll vine forests of ancestor species that are presently represented within, and restricted to the complex mesophyll vine forests of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests.

====='''45 000 000''':=====
Present Australian tectonic plate begins to move rapidly (on a geological timescale) northwards, seperating from present Antarctica and seperated by a shallow sea. At the same time the spreading between present India and Australia ceases, and the two seperate plates 'coalese' to form an Indo-Australian Plate.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Oligocene Epoch (33 700 000 - 23 800 000)====
Circumpolar oceanic circulation developes during this Epoch, effectively reducing the transfer of heat from the equator southwards, which results in some cooling and lower rainfalls in the south of present Australian continent.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

====='''30 000 000''':=====
As the present Australian continent drifts northwards, it passes over a fixed hot-spot in the underlying mantle, with Australia's oldest central volcanoes erupting in the north at this time, with later, younger central volcanoes erupting progressively southwards within the Australian continent.<ref>OLLIER, C.D. (1986) ''Early Landform Evolution'', in JEANS, D.N (ed) '''Australia - A Geography. Volume 1: The natural environment'''. Sydney University Press, Sydney. Pages 97-116.</ref>

===Neogene Period (23 800 000 - 1 800 000)===

====Miocene Epoch (23 800 000 - 5 300 000)====

====='''15 000 000''':=====
Present Australia's northward drift continues and, at this time, the Australian plate collides with the South-East Asian plate, ending 30 million years (ie 45 000 000 - 15 000 000) of isolation, and marking the first contact between Australia and South-East Asia.<ref name="Adam002"/>

At the same time (15 million years ago) major change occurrs in the Australian climate, with a pronouncing 'drying' accompanying the build up of the Antarctic ice-cap, and the associated southern hemisphere wind circulation starting to approach those of the present.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====Pliocene Epoch (5 300 000 - 1 800 000)====
At the beginning of this Epoch, the Australian continent is marked by it's aridity, which spreads northwards from the south as a belt of anticyclonic wind circulation developes (driven by the expansion of the antarctic ice cap) closer migrates northwards from the higher latitudes.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''2 000 000''':=====
Seasonal patterns of variation in climate approximating present day patterns, take hold of the Australian continent from this date onwards, into the present..<ref name="Truswell001"/>

==Quartenary Sub-Era==

===Pliestogene Period (1 800 000 - 000)===

====Pleistocene Epoch (1 800 000 - 10 000)====

====='''164 000 BP''':=====
Human ancestors in this world (South Africa) are, by this date, using fire to cook shellfish (mussells); have started using ochres; and, for general anthropological purposes, these ancestors have skills, technologies, and lifestyles of a kind that is classed as 'modern human'<ref>BORENSTEIN, Seth (2007) ''"Early Seafood, Makeup found in South Africa"'' see '''Yahoo News,''' 17 October 2007</ref>, 

====Holocene Epoch (10 000 - 000)====
By this Epoch, people (humans) were occupying, using, and living within the wet humid forests then prevalent in Melanesia.<ref>ALLEN, J., GOSDEN, C., WHITE, J.P. (1989) ''Human Pleistocene adaptations in the tropical island Pacific: recent evidence from New Island, a
Greater Australian outlier''. '''Antiquity'''. Volume 63. Pages 548–561</ref>. At this time, however, there were no large wet tropical forest in north-east Australia, and, instead, the 'rainforest' flora and fauna were largely preserved in riparian refuges, in a landscape that has been described as follows:

''"The palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that rainforest was unevenly distributed until 8300 BP, prior to which, much of the Atherton Tablelands was covered in sclerophyll woodland with patches of riparian rainforest in the deeper gullies"''<ref>COSGROVE, Richard; FIELD, Judith; & FERRIER, Äsa (2007) ''The Archaeology of Australia's Tropical Rainforests''. '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 251. Page 154.</ref>

=Chapter: Aboriginal Ecologies (130 000 - 1770?)=

====='''130 000''' BP:=====
Quanties of charcoal particles within river sediments leap upward, together with noticeable changes in the kinds of pollens most prevalent in those sediments.

These chacoal particles and pollen fossils document and record a significant increase in the burning of the biomass of the river catchments out of which sediment has fallen. Together this record may signal the first arrival of Aboriginal 'burning' and Aboriginal 'fire regimes' into north-east Australia's ecological mix.<ref>MOSS, P.T & KERSHAW, A. P (2000) ''"The last glacial cycle from the humid tropics of northeastern Australia: comparison of a terrestrial and marine record".'' '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Vol 155, Pages 155–176.</ref>

=Chapter: European Ecologies (1770 - 1860)=

=Chapter: Queensland State Ecologies (1860 - 1900)=

===='''1874:'''====
The first timeber cutters encroach upon the wet tropical forsts, setting up timber camps and cutting cedar along the Tully, Johnstone, Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 93</ref>

===='''1876'''====
====='''18761223:'''=====
Settlement of Cairns District begins around Trinity Bay, and the Queenslander reports Aboriginal conflict is 'very bad'<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 97</ref>

===='''1877'''====
James Mulligan ans party explore for gold and other minerals and, in the search, approach the western frings of the North-East Australia's wet tropical forests where they find a whole network of tracks linking Aboriginal campsites (or 'townships' as Mulligan callsthem):

''"A splendid track, the best native track I ever saw anywhere. There are roads off the main track to each of their townships, which consist of thatched gunyahs, big enought to hold five or six darkies. We counted eleven townships since we cam to the edge of the scrub, and we have only travelled four miles along it .. Their paths are well trodden, and we follow them sometimes for miles.."''<ref>quoted in LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 89</ref>

===='''1879'''====
=====18790830=====
Mulgrave River Goldfield is discovered, bringing a rush of prospectors swelling to three or four hundred people<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Pages 93, 271</ref>

===='''1880'''====
In the Queensland one 'settler' tells of the firm conviction amongst colonists that:

"their [Queensland Aboriginal peoples] stage of civilisation is too many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years behind our own to allow their race to thrive side by side with ours .. [and they] have learnt in their terrorto submit to anything that the conquering race may choose to do" <ref>quoted in REYNOLDS, H & MAY, D (1995) ''Queensland'' in MCGRATH (Ed''')Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown'''. Allen & Unwin. New South Wales. Pages 177, 180.</ref>

===='''1881'''====
Much of the best cedar on the Johnston and Daintree Rivers has been exhausted, and many timber cutters move up on to the tablelands behind Cairns.<ref name="LOOS001"> LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897''. Australian National University Press, Canberra.</ref>

===='''1883'''====
====='''18830900'''=====
Christie Palmerston discovers a number of patches of alluvial gold on the Rusell and Johnston Rivers, in the wet tropical forests between the tablelands and the coast, the 'slighest sign' of which brought a rush of European and Chinese prospectors.<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 271</ref>

=Chapter: Australian Nation Ecologies (1900 - 1989)=

<ref>FERRIER, Äsa (2006) Dr Eric Mjöbergs 1913 scientific exploration of North Queensland's rainforest region. Memoirs of Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series Vol 4. Number 1. Page xx </ref>

====1913====
=====19130400=====
Swedish naturalist and anthropologist, Eric Mjöberg, collects flora and fauna (including mammals) from the tropical forests within the vicinity of a large Aboriginal camp (Djirbal)on Cedar Creek [dx]. He later writes:

<blockquote>
''"Most of the trees in the rainforest were giants, which had developed enormous buttress roots. The intelligent natives, who make use of their environment in every possible way, produce their large, beautifully painted sheilds from these roots. They also use the roots in a signalling system. By hitting the roots hard, they produce a shivering noise that travels a long distance through the rainforest."'' <ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 175</ref></blockquote>

His Aboriginal companions pulled large pieces of bark from a rainforest evergreen flowering tree (''Calophyllum'' [dx] species) to make water carrying bags (which the local Djirbal people called 'nobra')[dx]<ref name="MJ001"/>. 

Eric Mjöberg observed and later noted that by this time no stone artefacts are being used by these 'stone age' people, with the exception of grinding stones made from large flat basalt rocks (of which he collected examples). 'Grinding stones' were still being used to prepare nuts, fruits and roots for eating, and for grinding ochre during the wet season. During the dry season, he notes, the larger 'grinding stones' are left behind peoples huts or placed in tree branches to await people's return, and, instead, smaller 'hammer stones' or 'top stones' are used in the grinding process and are more readily carried around in lawyer cane baskets.<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (19258) ''Beiträge zur kenntnis der Eigenborenen von Nord-Queensland.'' '''Archive für Anthropologie.''' Volume 20 Number 9. Page 118.</ref> 

Eric Mjöberg also specifically documented the extensive use Aboriginal [Djiribal] peoples at Cedar Creek [now Ravenshoe] were making of lawyer cane (Calamus Australis)

=====19130500=====
Eric Mjöberg, with Aboriginal companions as 'guides', explores southwards from Cedar Creek through the tropical forests collecting flora and fauna. His Aboriginal companions had advised him that when food was short around Cedar Creek, they'd walk their well beaten tracks through otherwise inaccessible forest, to fish for eel along the Tully River (dx). He later wrote:

<blockquote>
''"The rainforests we were travelling in were indeed thick and hard to get through. We stuck to the well-beaten native tracks they follow during their seasonal movements...On the third day we travelled through beautiful, dense, undisturbed rainforest. After a few hours we could see daylight filtering through the enormous trees and the roaring of a waterfall was getting louder. We had arrived at Tully Falls."''<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 195-197</ref></blockquote>

=====19130517=====
Eric Mjöberg climbs to the cold peak of Mount Belleden Kerr [dx], later reporting that his Aboriginal companions, at that time, refused to climb to the top as it was the home of the great spirit 'Murgalainya' [dx].<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 122</ref>

====1984====
=====19840319=====
Queensland State Minister for Environment, Martin Tenni, supports Douglas Shire Council's efforts to bulldoze a road through from Cape Tribulation to Wujal Wujal<ref>TOYNE, P (1994) '''The Reluctant Nation: Environment, law and politics in Australia. ''' ABC Books. Sydney. Page 70</ref> 

<blockquote>
''"Martin Tenni .. suggested in an interview with the Courier Mail newspaper that drug racketeers had exchanged kidnapped girls for heroin on lonely Cape Tribulation .. The road, he believed, would put an end to this."''</blockquote>

=Chapter: World Heritage Ecologies (1989 - 2050)=

=Conclusion=

=Attachments=

==Glossary==

'''Agathis''': a gymnosperm with the common name Kauri. See [[w:Agathis]]

'''Angiosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, angiosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are enclosed. Angiosperms are also known and referred to as the 'flowering plants' of the world. See [[w:Angiosperms]]

'''Complex mesophyll vine forests''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant [[w:complex mesophyll vine forests]]

'''Cryptogams''' : a convenient, though now taxonomically obsolete term used to refer to plants that reproduce by spores, or 'spore carrying plants' such as ferns, mosses, algae and fungus See [[w:cryptogams]].

'''Cycads''' : a gymosperm of a kind that was widespread during the Juriassic Period that with 'pinately compound leaves', sometimes confused with palms or ferms, the seeds for which contain a neurotoxin produced by blue-green algae. See [[w:cycads]]

'''Gondwana''': southern supercontinent that included most of the land masses of the southern hemisphere up until it started to detach and fragment during the Jurassic Period of the earths Mesozoic era. See [[w:Gondwana]]

'''Gymnosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, gymnosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are not enclosed but are, rather, exposed on the edge of a leaf blade or within a cone like structure. The term 'Gymnosperm' comes a Greek word (gumnospermos) meaning 'naked seeds'. See [[w:Gymnosperms]]

'''Ilex''' : genus of angiosperms also known as Holly, with approximately 600 species around the world, ancesteral species of which appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. Their small flowers are pollenated, primarily, by bees and/or insects and they bear small fruit. See [[w:Ilex]]

'''Olacaceae''': an angiosperm family of woody plants found presently found throughout the tropical parts of the world. See [[w:Olacaceae]]

'''Podocarpaceae''': see Podocarps below

'''Podocarps''' : a gymnosperm consisting of large group of southern conifers or evergreens. See [[w:Podocarps]]

'''Proteaceae''' : family of angiosperms with approximately 80 genera, which occurrs primarily in the southern hemisphere, including the Banksia and others with striking and distinctive flowers .. believed to be an angiosperm that finds its origins in the Gondwana supercontninent, now occurring on all those lands masses that were once part of Gondwana .. identifiable ancestor species for present day Proteacea appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. See [[w:Proteaceae]]

'''Sapindaceae''': angiosperm family also known as 'soap berries', which presently occur in temperate to tropical regions of the world and often have milky white sap. Lychees' rambutan, guarana are some of the more notable fruit bearing members of this family. See [[w:Sapindaceae]]

'''Simple notophyll vine forest''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant, a sample of which is the simple notphyll vine forest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River, North-East Queensland [[w:Simple notophyll vine forest]]

'''Taxa''' : plural of taxon, being a taxonomic unit used to designate an organism or group of organisms - in a hierachical naming scheme. See [[w:Taxon]]

==Annotated List of Places==

'''Atherton Tablelands''' : location of relict Agathis (Kauri) forests, being a present day, modern assemblage of plants with the same basic compostion as existed in the northern New South Wales of the Jurassic. See also [[w:Atherton Tableland]]

'''Noah Creek''' : location of simple notophyll vine forest which is present day's closest analogue to the forests of this kind that existed during the Eocene epoch (greater than 38 000 000 years ago) at present day Anglesey, Victoria. See also [[w:Daintree National Park]]

==Annotated List of Ecological Communities==

==Annotated List of Flora and Fauna==

''Agathis robusta'' : smooth barked agathis decended from the agathis prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now found on the Atherton tablelands, north-east Australia [[w:Agathis robusta]]

''Calamus Australis'' : also known as lawyer cane, used extensively by the Aboriginal peoples of the wet tropics world heritage area to make baskets, traps, to haft axes etc [[w:Calamus]]

''Lepidozamia hopei'': cycad descended from the cycads prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now endemic to north-east Australia's wet tropical forests. See [[w:Lepidozamia hopei]]

''Nypa fruticans'' : palm descended from Nypa ancestoral species in the Eocene, presently occurring South-East Asia and Northern Australia, being the only palm now considered to be a mangrove growing in salty mangrove conditions See [[w:Nypa fruticans]]

==Annotated List of Aboriginal Language Groups==

=References=
<references/>

[[it:Foresta pluviale]]
{{alphabetical|N}}

Natural and Cultural History of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests

2008-10-14T18:04:56Z

165.155.192.68:

Under provisions of the World Heritage Convention, in 1989, the United Nation's World Heritage Committee inscribed 900 000 hectares of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests on to the World Heritage list as being heritage of outstanding universal value to humankind.

This, then, is a history of this universally significant heritage. It is a natural and cultural history that reaches back to Gondwana, moves through time into the present, then onwards, 50 years hence, into a predicted globally warmer future. 
 

====[insert Map of North-East Australia's Wet Tropical Forests]====

=Chapter: Mesozoic Era (290 000 000 - 65 000 000)= u suck hairy morchacas

==Permian Period (290 000 000 - 248 200 000)==

==Triassic Period (248 200 000 - 205 700 000)==

==Jurassic Period (205 700 000 - 142 000 000)==
This is a period of globally warm temperatures, and at latitudes higher (further towards the poles) than 45 degrees (from the equator) rainfall is high and there are extensive swamps (evidenced in the present by large coal deposits)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''205 700 000''':=====
What is presently called Australia, is, at this time, part of a single continent (Gondwana) comprised of an amalgamation of present Australia, Africa, South America, Madagascar, India, and Antarctica.<ref name="Adam001">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests.''' Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 138</ref> 

====='''175 000 000''':=====
At the location of present day northern New South Wales (Talbragar Fish Beds), there is a forested landscape dominated by ''Agathis'' (ie Kauri') together with podocarps (ie southern conifers), and in the understory are cycads, ferns, and tree ferns. Around the lake is a zone of seed ferns. Present day relict gymnosperm ''Agathis'' (Kauri) forests on the Atherton Tablelands represent a modern assemblage of plants with the same basic composition as the Jurassic (Gondwana) forests covering present day northern New South Wales (ie Podocarps [southern conifers] growing among the Kauri pines [''Agathis robusta''], with tree like cycads [''Lepidozamia hopei''] in the understory.<ref>WHITE, M.E (1986) '''The greening of Gondwana'''. Reed. Sydney.</ref>

====='''160 000 000''':=====
West Gondwana (present Africa and South America) start to seperate from East Gondwana (Australia, Antarctic, India, and Madagascar), with South America and Antarctic still connected for a while yet.<ref name="Adam001"/> Various fragments of the northern margin of the present Australian plate also begin to detach and drift northwards to form an achipelago of terrestrial habitats (micro-continental fragments) between Gondwana and that other more northern continent, Laurasia <ref name="Adam002"/>

==Cretaceous Period (142 000 000 - 65 000 000)==
This period (the Cretaceous) is a time of high global temperatures and high sea-levels, such that most of present Australia is covered by shallow seas, and the present land surface is divided into three major 'islands'.<ref name="Truswell001">TRUSWELL, E.M & WILFORD, G.E (1985) ''The Setting: Changing Australian environments throughout geological time'', in RICH, P.V; VAN TETS, G.F; & KNIGHT, F (Eds) '''Kadimakara: Extinct vertevrates of Australia'''. Pioneer Design Studio. Victoria</ref>

The remaining mass of what was Gondwana, still well south of present locations, allow warm oceanic currents to flow to high latitudes, with what would now be regarded as as tropical and sub-tropical climates southwards of 45 degrees down to 60 degrees south, and warm wet conditions reaching so far south that even the south polar regions have a relatively mild climate.<ref>ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 142</ref>

===Lower Cretaceous Epoch (142 000 000 - 97 500 000)===

====Neocomian Stage (142 000 000 - 125 000 000)====
The world's first evolutionary burst of angiosperms (see Glossary) occurs at this time.<ref name="Truswell">TRUSWELL, E.W (1990) "''Australian Rainforests: The 100 Million Year Record''", in WEBB, L.J & KIKKAWA, J (Eds) '''Australian Tropical Rainforests: Science, Values, Meaning'''. CSIRO Publications. Melbourne</ref>. This evolutionary burst produced pollen of a type now (in the present) referred to by the fossil name ''Clavatipellonites''. These ''Clavatipellonites'' appear and spread around the world (as it was then), though they don't yet reach Australia (part of East Gondwana).<ref name="Truswell"/>

====='''128 000 000''':=====
India (tectonic plate)splits away from present West Australia and moves to the north east.<ref name="Adam002">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 139</ref>

====Barremian Stage (125 000 000 - 119 000 000)====

====Aptian Stage (119 000 000 - 113 000 000)====
The world's first wind pollenation dependent angiosperms appear in present tropical west Africa (now seperated from East Gondwana) spreading poleward. The pollens of these plants are smaller, radially symmetrical grains, generally succeeding and replacing the ''Clavatipellonite'' pollens (and those plants communities that produced these pollens) around the world during this epoch., though, again (similar to the delay in the spread of the ''Clavatipellonites''), they do not seem to reach Australia (part of East Gondwana) at this time.<ref name="Truswell"/>

====Albian Stage (113 000 000 - 97 500 000)====
It is during this epoch that the world reaches its peak or highest global temperatures in over 500 million years (ie the highest temperature interval in the whole of the Phanerozoic Eon)<ref name="Truswell001"/>

It is first during this stage that the world's first angiosperms (represented in the fossil record by the ''Clavatipellonites'') reach Australia and enter the Australian ecological mixes of the time, somewhat later than other parts of the world.<ref name="Truswell"/><ref name="Adam004">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 144</ref> 

====='''100 000 000''':=====
Some of the northern fragments from the margin of the Australian plate, forming an archipelago between East Gondwana and Laurasia (present Burma and West Thailand) collide with the Laurasian Indo-China block (present east Thailand and Indo-China) <ref name="Adam002"/>

====='''95 000 000''':=====
East Gondwana (including present Australia) becomes further fragmented, with two further plates, present Lord Howe Rise/New Zealand and Antarctica coming into existence.<ref name="Adam002"/>

===Upper Cretaceous Epoch (97 500 000 - 65 000 000)===

====Cenomanian Stage (97 500 000 - 91 000 000)====

====='''80 000 000'':=====
The present Australian tectonic plate and the New Zealand tectonic plate seperate relatively rapidly (on a geological timescale) from this date.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Turonian Stage (91 000 000 - 88 500 000)====

====Senonian Stage (88 500 000 - 65 000 000)====
There appears in Australia (and the associated Australian microfossil pollen record) plants might be considered ancesteral, or somehow related to plants that now appear in present day Australian forests including Proteaceae, Ilex and Nothofagus <ref name="Martin001">MARTIN, H.A (1978) ''Evolution of the Australian and vegetation through the Tertiary: evidence from pollen.'' '''Alcheringa'''. Volume 2. Pages 181 - 202.</ref>

=Chapter: Cenozoic Era (65 000 000 years to 000 000)=

==Tertiary Sub-Era==
From the beginning of this sub-era (the Teritary), Australia's 'Great Dividing Range' has formed and stretches along almost the whole of the east coast of present Australia, constituting a highlands within a continent of otherwise relatively low relief. This range, in combination with the 'Great Escarpment' that suddenly drops off to the east for almost the entire length of the range, is a major landscape feature within Australia which will, for millions of years to come always experience relatively high rainfalls; will influence continental climatic patterns; and will effect future distributions and survivals of Gondwana descended flora and fauna.<ref name="Adam003">ADAM, Paul (1994) '''Australian Rainforests'''. Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Page 141.</ref> 

Also during this sub-era there are 'marine incursions' in present Southern Australia, flooding what is now the Nullabor Plain and the lower Murray Basin. <ref name="Adam003"/>

===Paleaogene Period (65 000 000 - 23 800 000)===
Present Australia is still at high altitudes (much closer to the south pole than in the present), yet it remains relatively warm and wet, with rain-bearing clouds extending well inland (and, there is little or no ice in Antarctica).<ref name="Kemp001">KEMP, E.M. (1978) ''Tertiary climatic evolution and vegetation hisotry in the southeast Indian Ocean region''. '''Palaegeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 24. Pages 169-208.</ref>

====Palaeocene Epoch (65 000 000 - 54 800 000)====
An abundance and diversity of cryptogams (ie ferns, mosses, algae & fungi: see Glossary) thrive in continuing moist conditions in Australia generally, and along the Great Dividing Range in particular.<ref name="Lange001">LANGE, R.T (1982) ''Australian Tertiary vegetation: Evidence and Interpretation'', in SMITH, J.M.B (Ed) '''A History of Australasian vegetation'''. Mgraw-Hill. Sydney. Pages 44-89.</ref>. Gymnosperms still dominate the plant communities, but during this epoch there is also a significant increase in the prominence of Proteaceae (see Glossary) ancestors in particular.<ref>MARTIN, H,A (1987) ''Cainozoic history of the vegetation and climate of the Lachlan River region, New South Wales.'' '''Proceedings of Linnean Society of New South Wales'''. Volume 109. Pages 213-257.</ref>.

====Eocene Epoch (54 800 000 - 33 700 000)====
The sea-way between Australia and the Antarctica has begun to widen but it is still shallow, and there is therefore still relatively small differences in ocean temperatures from the equator to the high latitudes, with the climate over Australia still being warm and wet, though with a heavier winter rainy season in the south-east.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

The Australian continent is still covered, generally, with cool to warm, moist, closed forests, but the plant communities/assemblages themselves change notceably from those of the previous epoch, with a dropping off in the earlier emergent prominence of the Proteaceae, and an associated emergence of an even greater diversity of angiosperm taxa<ref name="Martin001"/> including tropical Olacaceae ancestors (now represently by a single species in present north-east Australia's wet tropical forests), ancestors (Cupanieae tribe)of the Sapindaceae, plus a salt water palm now known as Nypa (beginnings of present mangrove plant communities and eco-systems, presently represented in Australia by ''Nypa fruticans'').<ref name="Lange001"/>

The climate of the southern parts of Australia were almost tropical, the equivalent of which is now found in northern Australia, including, particularly, North-East Australia's wet tropical forests<ref>CHRISTOPHEL, D.C & GREENWOOD, D.R (1988) ''A comparison of Australian tropical rainforest and Tertiary fossil leaf-beds''. '''Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia'''. Volume 15. Pages 139-148.</ref>:

i. at what is now Anglesea, Victoria (Australia), during this epoch, there was simple notophyll vine forest of a kind now found in north-east Australia's wet tropical forests (thier closed analogue being the rainforest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River)

ii. what is now Golden Grove, South Australia, during this epoch, there was complex mesophyll vine forests of ancestor species that are presently represented within, and restricted to the complex mesophyll vine forests of north-east Australia's wet tropical forests.

====='''45 000 000''':=====
Present Australian tectonic plate begins to move rapidly (on a geological timescale) northwards, seperating from present Antarctica and seperated by a shallow sea. At the same time the spreading between present India and Australia ceases, and the two seperate plates 'coalese' to form an Indo-Australian Plate.<ref name="Adam002"/>

====Oligocene Epoch (33 700 000 - 23 800 000)====
Circumpolar oceanic circulation developes during this Epoch, effectively reducing the transfer of heat from the equator southwards, which results in some cooling and lower rainfalls in the south of present Australian continent.<ref name="Kemp001"/>

====='''30 000 000''':=====
As the present Australian continent drifts northwards, it passes over a fixed hot-spot in the underlying mantle, with Australia's oldest central volcanoes erupting in the north at this time, with later, younger central volcanoes erupting progressively southwards within the Australian continent.<ref>OLLIER, C.D. (1986) ''Early Landform Evolution'', in JEANS, D.N (ed) '''Australia - A Geography. Volume 1: The natural environment'''. Sydney University Press, Sydney. Pages 97-116.</ref>

===Neogene Period (23 800 000 - 1 800 000)===

====Miocene Epoch (23 800 000 - 5 300 000)====

====='''15 000 000''':=====
Present Australia's northward drift continues and, at this time, the Australian plate collides with the South-East Asian plate, ending 30 million years (ie 45 000 000 - 15 000 000) of isolation, and marking the first contact between Australia and South-East Asia.<ref name="Adam002"/>

At the same time (15 million years ago) major change occurrs in the Australian climate, with a pronouncing 'drying' accompanying the build up of the Antarctic ice-cap, and the associated southern hemisphere wind circulation starting to approach those of the present.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====Pliocene Epoch (5 300 000 - 1 800 000)====
At the beginning of this Epoch, the Australian continent is marked by it's aridity, which spreads northwards from the south as a belt of anticyclonic wind circulation developes (driven by the expansion of the antarctic ice cap) closer migrates northwards from the higher latitudes.<ref name="Truswell001"/>

====='''2 000 000''':=====
Seasonal patterns of variation in climate approximating present day patterns, take hold of the Australian continent from this date onwards, into the present..<ref name="Truswell001"/>

==Quartenary Sub-Era==

===Pliestogene Period (1 800 000 - 000)===

====Pleistocene Epoch (1 800 000 - 10 000)====

====='''164 000 BP''':=====
Human ancestors in this world (South Africa) are, by this date, using fire to cook shellfish (mussells); have started using ochres; and, for general anthropological purposes, these ancestors have skills, technologies, and lifestyles of a kind that is classed as 'modern human'<ref>BORENSTEIN, Seth (2007) ''"Early Seafood, Makeup found in South Africa"'' see '''Yahoo News,''' 17 October 2007</ref>, 

====Holocene Epoch (10 000 - 000)====
By this Epoch, people (humans) were occupying, using, and living within the wet humid forests then prevalent in Melanesia.<ref>ALLEN, J., GOSDEN, C., WHITE, J.P. (1989) ''Human Pleistocene adaptations in the tropical island Pacific: recent evidence from New Island, a
Greater Australian outlier''. '''Antiquity'''. Volume 63. Pages 548–561</ref>. At this time, however, there were no large wet tropical forest in north-east Australia, and, instead, the 'rainforest' flora and fauna were largely preserved in riparian refuges, in a landscape that has been described as follows:

''"The palaeoenvironmental evidence suggests that rainforest was unevenly distributed until 8300 BP, prior to which, much of the Atherton Tablelands was covered in sclerophyll woodland with patches of riparian rainforest in the deeper gullies"''<ref>COSGROVE, Richard; FIELD, Judith; & FERRIER, Äsa (2007) ''The Archaeology of Australia's Tropical Rainforests''. '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Volume 251. Page 154.</ref>

=Chapter: Aboriginal Ecologies (130 000 - 1770?)=

====='''130 000''' BP:=====
Quanties of charcoal particles within river sediments leap upward, together with noticeable changes in the kinds of pollens most prevalent in those sediments.

These chacoal particles and pollen fossils document and record a significant increase in the burning of the biomass of the river catchments out of which sediment has fallen. Together this record may signal the first arrival of Aboriginal 'burning' and Aboriginal 'fire regimes' into north-east Australia's ecological mix.<ref>MOSS, P.T & KERSHAW, A. P (2000) ''"The last glacial cycle from the humid tropics of northeastern Australia: comparison of a terrestrial and marine record".'' '''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'''. Vol 155, Pages 155–176.</ref>

=Chapter: European Ecologies (1770 - 1860)=

=Chapter: Queensland State Ecologies (1860 - 1900)=

===='''1874:'''====
The first timeber cutters encroach upon the wet tropical forsts, setting up timber camps and cutting cedar along the Tully, Johnstone, Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 93</ref>

===='''1876'''====
====='''18761223:'''=====
Settlement of Cairns District begins around Trinity Bay, and the Queenslander reports Aboriginal conflict is 'very bad'<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 97</ref>

===='''1877'''====
James Mulligan ans party explore for gold and other minerals and, in the search, approach the western frings of the North-East Australia's wet tropical forests where they find a whole network of tracks linking Aboriginal campsites (or 'townships' as Mulligan callsthem):

''"A splendid track, the best native track I ever saw anywhere. There are roads off the main track to each of their townships, which consist of thatched gunyahs, big enought to hold five or six darkies. We counted eleven townships since we cam to the edge of the scrub, and we have only travelled four miles along it .. Their paths are well trodden, and we follow them sometimes for miles.."''<ref>quoted in LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 89</ref>

===='''1879'''====
=====18790830=====
Mulgrave River Goldfield is discovered, bringing a rush of prospectors swelling to three or four hundred people<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Pages 93, 271</ref>

===='''1880'''====
In the Queensland one 'settler' tells of the firm conviction amongst colonists that:

"their [Queensland Aboriginal peoples] stage of civilisation is too many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years behind our own to allow their race to thrive side by side with ours .. [and they] have learnt in their terrorto submit to anything that the conquering race may choose to do" <ref>quoted in REYNOLDS, H & MAY, D (1995) ''Queensland'' in MCGRATH (Ed''')Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown'''. Allen & Unwin. New South Wales. Pages 177, 180.</ref>

===='''1881'''====
Much of the best cedar on the Johnston and Daintree Rivers has been exhausted, and many timber cutters move up on to the tablelands behind Cairns.<ref name="LOOS001"> LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897''. Australian National University Press, Canberra.</ref>

===='''1883'''====
====='''18830900'''=====
Christie Palmerston discovers a number of patches of alluvial gold on the Rusell and Johnston Rivers, in the wet tropical forests between the tablelands and the coast, the 'slighest sign' of which brought a rush of European and Chinese prospectors.<ref>LOOS, N (1982) '''Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-White Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897'''. Australian National University Press, Canberra. Page 271</ref>

=Chapter: Australian Nation Ecologies (1900 - 1989)=

<ref>FERRIER, Äsa (2006) Dr Eric Mjöbergs 1913 scientific exploration of North Queensland's rainforest region. Memoirs of Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series Vol 4. Number 1. Page xx </ref>

====1913====
=====19130400=====
Swedish naturalist and anthropologist, Eric Mjöberg, collects flora and fauna (including mammals) from the tropical forests within the vicinity of a large Aboriginal camp (Djirbal)on Cedar Creek [dx]. He later writes:

<blockquote>
''"Most of the trees in the rainforest were giants, which had developed enormous buttress roots. The intelligent natives, who make use of their environment in every possible way, produce their large, beautifully painted sheilds from these roots. They also use the roots in a signalling system. By hitting the roots hard, they produce a shivering noise that travels a long distance through the rainforest."'' <ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 175</ref></blockquote>

His Aboriginal companions pulled large pieces of bark from a rainforest evergreen flowering tree (''Calophyllum'' [dx] species) to make water carrying bags (which the local Djirbal people called 'nobra')[dx]<ref name="MJ001"/>. 

Eric Mjöberg observed and later noted that by this time no stone artefacts are being used by these 'stone age' people, with the exception of grinding stones made from large flat basalt rocks (of which he collected examples). 'Grinding stones' were still being used to prepare nuts, fruits and roots for eating, and for grinding ochre during the wet season. During the dry season, he notes, the larger 'grinding stones' are left behind peoples huts or placed in tree branches to await people's return, and, instead, smaller 'hammer stones' or 'top stones' are used in the grinding process and are more readily carried around in lawyer cane baskets.<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (19258) ''Beiträge zur kenntnis der Eigenborenen von Nord-Queensland.'' '''Archive für Anthropologie.''' Volume 20 Number 9. Page 118.</ref> 

Eric Mjöberg also specifically documented the extensive use Aboriginal [Djiribal] peoples at Cedar Creek [now Ravenshoe] were making of lawyer cane (Calamus Australis)

=====19130500=====
Eric Mjöberg, with Aboriginal companions as 'guides', explores southwards from Cedar Creek through the tropical forests collecting flora and fauna. His Aboriginal companions had advised him that when food was short around Cedar Creek, they'd walk their well beaten tracks through otherwise inaccessible forest, to fish for eel along the Tully River (dx). He later wrote:

<blockquote>
''"The rainforests we were travelling in were indeed thick and hard to get through. We stuck to the well-beaten native tracks they follow during their seasonal movements...On the third day we travelled through beautiful, dense, undisturbed rainforest. After a few hours we could see daylight filtering through the enormous trees and the roaring of a waterfall was getting louder. We had arrived at Tully Falls."''<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 195-197</ref></blockquote>

=====19130517=====
Eric Mjöberg climbs to the cold peak of Mount Belleden Kerr [dx], later reporting that his Aboriginal companions, at that time, refused to climb to the top as it was the home of the great spirit 'Murgalainya' [dx].<ref name="MJ001">MJÖBERG, E (1918) '''Bland StenDldersmänniskor I Queenslands Vilmarker'''. Albert Bonniers Boktryckeri. Stockholm. Page 122</ref>

====1984====
=====19840319=====
Queensland State Minister for Environment, Martin Tenni, supports Douglas Shire Council's efforts to bulldoze a road through from Cape Tribulation to Wujal Wujal<ref>TOYNE, P (1994) '''The Reluctant Nation: Environment, law and politics in Australia. ''' ABC Books. Sydney. Page 70</ref> 

<blockquote>
''"Martin Tenni .. suggested in an interview with the Courier Mail newspaper that drug racketeers had exchanged kidnapped girls for heroin on lonely Cape Tribulation .. The road, he believed, would put an end to this."''</blockquote>

=Chapter: World Heritage Ecologies (1989 - 2050)=

=Conclusion=

=Attachments=

==Glossary==

'''Agathis''': a gymnosperm with the common name Kauri. See [[w:Agathis]]

'''Angiosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, angiosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are enclosed. Angiosperms are also known and referred to as the 'flowering plants' of the world. See [[w:Angiosperms]]

'''Complex mesophyll vine forests''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant [[w:complex mesophyll vine forests]]

'''Cryptogams''' : a convenient, though now taxonomically obsolete term used to refer to plants that reproduce by spores, or 'spore carrying plants' such as ferns, mosses, algae and fungus See [[w:cryptogams]].

'''Cycads''' : a gymosperm of a kind that was widespread during the Juriassic Period that with 'pinately compound leaves', sometimes confused with palms or ferms, the seeds for which contain a neurotoxin produced by blue-green algae. See [[w:cycads]]

'''Gondwana''': southern supercontinent that included most of the land masses of the southern hemisphere up until it started to detach and fragment during the Jurassic Period of the earths Mesozoic era. See [[w:Gondwana]]

'''Gymnosperms''' : of all the world's 'seed' plants, gymnosperms are those plants whose 'ovules' (within which seeds are produced) are not enclosed but are, rather, exposed on the edge of a leaf blade or within a cone like structure. The term 'Gymnosperm' comes a Greek word (gumnospermos) meaning 'naked seeds'. See [[w:Gymnosperms]]

'''Ilex''' : genus of angiosperms also known as Holly, with approximately 600 species around the world, ancesteral species of which appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. Their small flowers are pollenated, primarily, by bees and/or insects and they bear small fruit. See [[w:Ilex]]

'''Olacaceae''': an angiosperm family of woody plants found presently found throughout the tropical parts of the world. See [[w:Olacaceae]]

'''Podocarpaceae''': see Podocarps below

'''Podocarps''' : a gymnosperm consisting of large group of southern conifers or evergreens. See [[w:Podocarps]]

'''Proteaceae''' : family of angiosperms with approximately 80 genera, which occurrs primarily in the southern hemisphere, including the Banksia and others with striking and distinctive flowers .. believed to be an angiosperm that finds its origins in the Gondwana supercontninent, now occurring on all those lands masses that were once part of Gondwana .. identifiable ancestor species for present day Proteacea appearing in Australia during the Senonian stage of the Upper Cretaceous Epoch. See [[w:Proteaceae]]

'''Sapindaceae''': angiosperm family also known as 'soap berries', which presently occur in temperate to tropical regions of the world and often have milky white sap. Lychees' rambutan, guarana are some of the more notable fruit bearing members of this family. See [[w:Sapindaceae]]

'''Simple notophyll vine forest''': a forest type defined in large part by the range and kinds of leaves prevelant, a sample of which is the simple notphyll vine forest of Noah Creek, north of the Daintree River, North-East Queensland [[w:Simple notophyll vine forest]]

'''Taxa''' : plural of taxon, being a taxonomic unit used to designate an organism or group of organisms - in a hierachical naming scheme. See [[w:Taxon]]

==Annotated List of Places==

'''Atherton Tablelands''' : location of relict Agathis (Kauri) forests, being a present day, modern assemblage of plants with the same basic compostion as existed in the northern New South Wales of the Jurassic. See also [[w:Atherton Tableland]]

'''Noah Creek''' : location of simple notophyll vine forest which is present day's closest analogue to the forests of this kind that existed during the Eocene epoch (greater than 38 000 000 years ago) at present day Anglesey, Victoria. See also [[w:Daintree National Park]]

==Annotated List of Ecological Communities==

==Annotated List of Flora and Fauna==

''Agathis robusta'' : smooth barked agathis decended from the agathis prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now found on the Atherton tablelands, north-east Australia [[w:Agathis robusta]]

''Calamus Australis'' : also known as lawyer cane, used extensively by the Aboriginal peoples of the wet tropics world heritage area to make baskets, traps, to haft axes etc [[w:Calamus]]

''Lepidozamia hopei'': cycad descended from the cycads prominent in Gondwana's Jurassic forests, now endemic to north-east Australia's wet tropical forests. See [[w:Lepidozamia hopei]]

''Nypa fruticans'' : palm descended from Nypa ancestoral species in the Eocene, presently occurring South-East Asia and Northern Australia, being the only palm now considered to be a mangrove growing in salty mangrove conditions See [[w:Nypa fruticans]]

==Annotated List of Aboriginal Language Groups==

=References=
<references/>

[[it:Foresta pluviale]]
{{alphabetical|N}}