Bridging Wallace´s Line reviews and assembles recent research on aspects of the environmental and cultural history and dynamics of Southeast Asia and Australia. It incorporates a different approach to Wallace´s Line by focusing on geographical continuities rather than differences. Taking the view that a seam can be approached from either side, Wallace´s Line symbolises a conceptual unification of regional variation into matters of global interest. These themes are cemented by the exclusion of that component  which emphasizes difference across the Line and other nearby biogeographic demarcations, the fauna.

Bridging Wallace´s Line contains three Sections. The first provides contextual information for later contributions focused on the Quaternary. It includes essential background reviews on geology and plant biogeography, and also on the climate dynamics of the Maritime Continent, an area of increasing importance in understanding global climate change. The second Section presents new research on Quaternary environmental change in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region. Pollen records offer evidence of transformations in vegetation patterning in relation to climate change, sea level fluctuations, biomass burning and the effects of mountain glaciers. These environmental dynamics provide a framework for the colonisation and adaptation of Homo erectus and H. sapiens across the region, explored in Section three. This volume challenges long-held assumptions of essential difference across the Southeast Asia-Australia divide, bridging Wallace´s Line for a fuller exploration of regional dynamics with global implications.

The cover photo ´Tracing the Wallace Line: wing leaf and land´s is taken from a water colour painting by the well known, British-born Australian painter, John Wolseley. The painting is from a recent Wolseley exhibition that examines and illustrates Wallace´s Line from various perspectives. Wolseley´s fascination with Wallace´s Line, well captured in this artwork, is indicative of his passion and general concerns for the landforms and biotas of the region.

Contents
 

Preface
Peter Kershaw, Bruno David, Nigel Tapper
 

Bridging Wallace´s Line: bringing home the Antipodes

Part I: ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND
 

Nigel Tapper
Climate, climatic variability and atmospheric circulation patterns in the Maritime
Continent region

Ian Metcalfe
Tectonic history of the SE Asian-Australian region

Robert J. Morley
Tertiary vegetation history of SE Asia, with emphasis on biogeographical relationships with Australia

Trevor Whiffin
Plant biogeography of the SE Asian-Australian region

Part II: QUATERNARY ENVIRONMENTS
 

Peter Kershaw, Sander van der Kaars, Patrick Moss and Xuan Wang
Quaternary records of vegetation, biomass burning, climate and possible human impact in the Indonesian-northern Australian region

J. Ignacio Martinez, Patrick De Deckker and Timothy T. Barrows
Palaeoceanography of the western Pacific Warm Pool during the Last Glacial Maximum

Andrew L. Maxwell and Kam-biu Liu
Late Quaternary pollen and associated records from the monsoonal areas of continental South
and SE Asia

Part III: THE PEOPLING OF SUNDA AND SAHUL
 

Nicola van Dijk and Alan Thorne
Asia and the peopling of Polynesia: understanding sequential migration

Harry Lourandos and Bruno David
Long-term archaeological and environmental trends: a comparison from late Pleistocene-Holocene Australia

Lesley Potter
Forest and grassland, drought and fire: the island of Borneo in the historical environmental record

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