Fires On Plains In 4530 B.C.

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29798, 14 April 1962, Page 10

Fires On Plains In 4530 B.C.

Radio-carbon dating of wood charcoal from the Canterbury Plains has da'ed ancient forest fires at 628. 3500, and 6495 years ago, Mr J. E Cox. of the Soil Survey Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said yesterday. The main purpose of the dating was to establish a maximum age for the overlying river-deposited silts and sands. These were all laid down by the Waimakariri river in floods from various of its earlier courses. The wood in the most recent of the three .charcoal samples was kanuka. It came from Yaldhurst. The overlying soil was in the Selwyn series.

The charcoal of 3500 years ago. from the Templeton district, also contained kanuka.

The soil overlying it was one of the Waimakariri series. The oldest charcoal was of beech and matai. It came from Broadfields, and thioverlying soil to which it gave a maximum date was in the Templeton series. “As it is highly improbable. from other evidence, that there was human occupation of the plains area 6500 years ago. or even 3500 years ago. the fires from which the charcoal resulted, in the two earlier of the soil horizons at any rate, must have been started by some natural action." said Mr Cox “This is a factor which has to be taken into account in any discussion of the former climate of Canterbury, and in any argument about whether the forests died out through a climate change or as the result of human occupation, or both.”

The extent of the forest fires from which the charcoal came was not known. "When an attempt is made to follow the fires through the soil horizon, some natural obstacle is reached or else the search ends where the horizon has been eroded away, or comes to the surface.’’ he said. "We have not managed to follow an ancient fire anywhere for more than about half a mile.” The carbon dating was carried out by the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Lower Hutt. The work of tracing the charcoal in tihe soil horizons was done by Mr Cox in conjunction with a former member of the Soil Survey. Mr C. B. Mead. The charcoal identifications were made by Mr H. R. Orman, of the Forest Research Institute. Rotorua.. _ j