Soapbox Humans

An ancient bone recasts how Indigenous Australians treated megafauna

A narrative that First Peoples helped drive species extinct is wrong, some scientists argue

An illustration shows ancient megafauna that once lived in Australia, including a giant echidna, a giant kangaroo, a tapir-looking animal and a thylacine. They are pictured in amongst tree trunks in a forest.

Some of the extinct megafauna that lived around Mammoth Cave around 50,000 years ago included the giant long-beaked echidna, the giant kangaroo, the giant diprotodontid and the Tasmanian thylacine (illustrated from left to right).

Peter Schouten

By Richard Kemeny

Australia’s First Peoples were more early paleontologists than extinction-driving butchers, a group of scientists argue.