New Ages for the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction About 46,000 Years Ago

@article{Roberts2001NewAF,
  title={New Ages for the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction About 46,000 Years Ago},
  author={Richard G. Roberts and Tim Fridtjof Flannery and Linda K. Ayliffe and Hiroyuki Yoshida and Jon M. Olley and Gavin J. Prideaux and Geoff M. Laslett and Alexander Baynes and M. Alex Smith and Rhys Jones and Barton L Smith},
  journal={Science},
  year={2001},
  volume={292},
  pages={1888 - 1892}
}
All Australian land mammals, reptiles, and birds weighing more than 100 kilograms, and six of the seven genera with a body mass of 45 to 100 kilograms, perished in the late Quaternary. The timing and causes of these extinctions remain uncertain. We report burial ages for megafauna from 28 sites and infer extinction across the continent around 46,400 years ago (95% confidence interval, 51,200 to 39,800 years ago). Our results rule out extreme aridity at the Last Glacial Maximum as the cause of… 
View on AAAS
uow.edu.au
492 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
31
Background Citations
148
Methods Citations
14
Results Citations
9

492 Citations

Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction

A 140,000-year record of dietary δ13C documents a permanent reduction in food sources available to the Australian emu, beginning about the time of human colonization; a change replicated at three widely separated sites and in the marsupial wombat.

Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia

This is the first comprehensive approach to incorporate uncertainty in fossil ages, extinction timing and climatology, to quantify mechanisms of prehistorical extinctions of megafaunal extinctions in the world's most controversial context.

Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate

Results from recent studies suggest that humans precipitated extinction in many parts of the globe through combined direct (hunting) and perhaps indirect (competition, habitat alteration) impacts, but that the timing and geography of extinction might have been different and the worldwide magnitude less, had not climatic change coincided with human impacts in many places.

Climate change frames debate over the extinction of megafauna in Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea)

  • S. WroeJ. Field S. Mooney
  • Environmental Science, Geography
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  • 2013
Mounting evidence points to the loss of most species before the peopling of Sahul and a significant role for climate change in the disappearance of the continent’s megafauna.

Timing and dynamics of Late Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern Australia

An exceptional faunal succession from Tight Entrance Cave, southwestern Australia is reported, which shows persistence of a diverse mammal community for at least 100 ka leading up to the earliest regional evidence of humans at 49 ka.

Australia's Mammal Extinctions: A 50,000-Year History

This book introduces readers to the great mammal extinction debate by taking a detective-like tour of these extinctions, uncovering how, why and when they occurred.

VERTEBRATE RECORDS | Late Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinctions

Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia

A continuous 150,000-year record offshore south-western Australia is presented and it is established that substantial changes in vegetation and fire regime occurred ∼70,000 years ago under a climate much drier than today.

Late Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinctions

Prolonged coexistence of humans and megafauna in Pleistocene Australia.

Geochemical evidence is presented that demonstrates the coexistence of humans and now-extinct megafaunal species on the Australian continent for a minimum of 15 ka and would effectively refute the rapid-overkill model and necessitate reconsideration of the regional impacts of global climatic change on megafauna and humans in the lead up to the last glacial maximum.
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 24 REFERENCES

Pleistocene extinction of genyornis newtoni: human impact on australian megafauna

Simultaneous extinction of Genyornis at all sites during an interval of modest climate change implies that human impact, not climate, was responsible.

Subtropical North Atlantic Temperatures 60,000 to 30,000 Years Ago.

  • SachsLehman
  • Environmental Science, Geography
    Science
  • 1999
A reconstruction of sea surface temperature based on alkenone unsaturation ratios in sediments of the Bermuda Rise provides a detailed record of subtropical climate from 60,000 to 30,000 years ago, suggesting that the largest, most rapid warmings were especially unstable.

65,000 years of vegetation change in central australia and the australian summer monsoon

Carbon isotopes in fossil emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) eggshell from Lake Eyre, South Australia, demonstrate that the relative abundance of C4 grasses varied substantially during the past 65,000 years, implying that the Australian monsoon was most effective between 45,000 and 65, thousands years ago and least effective during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Extinctions in near time : causes, contexts, and consequences

1 * Cretaceous Meteor Showers, the Human Ecological "Niche," and the Sixth Extinction.- 2 * Prehistoric Extinctions on Islands and Continents.- 3 * The Interaction of Humans, Megaherbivores, and…

Rapid extinction of the moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes): model, test, and implications.

A Leslie matrix population model supported by carbon-14 dating of early occupation layers lacking moa remains suggests that human hunting and habitat destruction drove the 11 species of moa to…

Thermoluminescence dating of a 50,000-year-old human occupation site in northern Australia

THE oldest secure date for human occupation in Greater Australia is 40kyr from eastern Papua New Guinea1, whereas slightly younger dates have been reported from southern Australia2. We now report…

Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton.

The Lake Mungo 3 burial documents the earliest known human presence on the Australian continent and implies that people who were skeletally within the range of the present Australian indigenous population colonized the continent during or before oxygen isotope stage 4 (57,000-71,000 years).

500 ka precipitation record from southeastern Australia: Evidence for interglacial relative aridity

230 Th/ 234 U dating of speleothems from southeastern Australia documents changes in effective precipitation over the past 500 k.y. at a temporal resolution not previously achieved. Results show that…

Millennial-scale instability of the antarctic ice sheet during the last glaciation

Carbon isotopes of benthic foraminifers reveal that South Atlantic IRD events coincided with strong increases in North Atlantic Deep Water production and inferred warming (interstadials) in the high-latitude North Atlantic.

Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago

Abstract New dating confirms that people occupied the Australian continent before the earliest time inferred from conventional radiocarbon analysis. Many of the new ages were obtained by accelerator…