Evidence for Megalake Chad, north-central Africa, during the late quaternary from satellite data

The existence of a very large Lake Chad during the late Quaternary, Megalake Chad, has long been questioned. A Megalake Chad would present strong evidence for climatic fluctuations of great magnitude during the Holocene in tropical Africa. In this paper we used satellite data from Landsat and Modis sensors to collect and analyse new information on landforms in a 2 000 000 km2 region of the Lake Chad Basin. We detected 2300 km of remains marking the ancient shoreline of Megalake Chad. The satellite data also indicated many Saharan rivers and relict deltas leading to the long paleoshoreline. Large dunefield flattenings were observed and interpreted as the result of wave-cut erosion by the paleolake. Similarities were noticed between the landforms observed along the paleoshoreline of Megalake Chad and that of the former Aral Sea. This finding has significant consequences for reconstructing paleohydrology and paleoenvironments through the Lake Chad basin, and continental climate change.

Western maps/Yanyuwa meaning: an interview with John Bradley

In July 2003 an important one-volume text, Forget about Flinders: A Yanyuwa atlas of the south west gulf of Carpentaria produced in a limited edition of 14 copies, returned to Yanyuwa country and to the families who collaborated with John Bradley and artist Nona Cameron on the project. Subsequently, a second edition of 20 copies has been released, mainly to institutions. It is the most comprehensive attempt yet to restore Yanyuwa names to country and to produce a multilayered, dynamic, history-rich, and bilingual representation of how country is known in this community, and how the central song cycle texts intersect with Yanyuwa tradition. What follows is a condensed and edited interview with Frances Devlin-Glass, in which John Bradley discusses the motivations, the hybridised methodologies employed, the innovations of this new genre, and the pedagogical ends served by this latest iteration of Yanyuwa song cycles.