Indigenous Australian fire-stick farming began at least 11,000 years ago

From Nature, 12 March 2024:

Indigenous Australians have been using fire to shape the country’s northern ecosystems for at least 11,000 years, according to charcoal preserved in the sediment of a sinkhole. The study was published on 11 March in Nature Geoscience1.

The practice of cultural burning, also known as ‘fire-stick farming’, is integral to Indigenous Australian culture and history, and is understood to have profoundly altered landscapes across the country.

Fire-stick farming involves introducing frequent, low-intensity fires in small areas of the landscape in a patchy, ‘mosaic’ pattern, and is done early in the dry season. The practice is important culturally and environmentally; in particular, it reduces the amount of fuel available for burning and therefore decreases the intensity of wildfires that might spark late in the dry season because of lightning strikes or other triggers. Read more.