Going Under Down Under: Early people at fault in Australian extinctions
By Sid Perkins
A lengthy, newly compiled fossil record of Australian mammals bolsters the notion that humanity’s arrival on the island continent led to the extinction of many large creatures there.
Archaeological evidence suggests that people arrived in northern and western Australia about 50,000 years ago (SN: 3/15/03, p. 173: Available to subscribers at Ancient people get dated Down Under). By 5,000 years later, about 90 percent of the continent’s mammals larger than a house cat had gone extinct, says Gavin J. Prideaux, a paleontologist at the Western Australian Museum in Perth. Casualties of that era include several species of kangaroos and wombats as well as marsupials that filled the ecological niches elsewhere populated by lions, hyenas, hippos, and tapirs.