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[dulouz]

Mega-marsupials once roamed Australia

The idea that simple undeveloped folk lived in harmony with nature takes another hit.




POSTED: 1640 GMT (0040 HKT), January 25, 2007
Story Highlights
� Giant lions, kangaroos and wombats once roamed Australia's outback
� They died out around 50,000 years ago after the arrival of human settlers
� Fossilized remains uncovered almost intact in three deep caves
� Scientists have identified the remains of 69 species


CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- Marsupial lions, kangaroos as tall as trucks and wombats the size of a rhinoceros roamed Australia's outback before being killed off by fires lit by arriving humans, scientists said on Thursday.

The giant animals lived in the arid Nullarbor desert around 400,000 years ago, but died out around 50,000 years ago, relatively shortly after the arrival of human settlers, according to new fossil skeletons found in caves.

Fossilized remains were uncovered almost intact in a series of three deep caves in the center of the Nullarbor desert -- east of the west coast city of Perth -- in October 2002.

"Three subsequent expeditions produced hundreds of fossils so well-preserved that they constitute a veritable "Rosetta Stone for Ice-Age Australia", expedition leader Gavin Prideaux said of the find, detailed in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

The team discovered 69 species of mammals, birds and reptiles, including eight new species of kangaroo, some standing up to 9 feet tall.

Protected from wind and rain, and undisturbed due to their remote location, the remains of the mega-beasts are in near-perfect condition, including the first-ever complete skeleton of a marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex.

"Unwary animals bounding around in the case of kangaroos, or running around in the case of marsupial lions and wombats, fell down these holes, as presumably most were nocturnal. It's very difficult to see a small opening on a flat surface at night," Prideaux said.

Research into the fossils challenges recent claims that Australia's megafauna were killed off by climate change, pointing the finger instead at fires, probably lit by the first human settlers who transformed the fragile landscape.

The lands inhabited by the megafauna once supported flowers, tall trees and shrubs. But isotopes extracted from skeletal enamels show the climate was hot and arid, similar to today.

The plants, the scientists said, were highly sensitive to so-called fire-stick farming, where lands were deliberately cleared by fires to encourage re-growth.

"Australian megafauna could take all that nature could throw at them for half-a-million years, without succumbing," said Richard Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong.

"It was only when people arrived that they vanished."

[dogbert]

Kind of funny...there's the stereotype about native peoples being perfect stewards of the land.

Yet, megafauna in Australia, North, and South America disappears soon after their arrival.

[stevemcgarrett]

Interesting article and I agree with dogbert.

Then again, they could just have been the ancestors of Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

[Gopher]

This story -- and Dogbert's analysis of its meaning -- is forty years old.

See Paul S. Martin, "Pleistocene Overkill."

Here is what he says about the western hemisphere, by the way...

[happeningthang]

[Gopher]

[happeningthang]

Got me there, but that's all men, not specific to dogbert's "native people".

[Gopher]

[Nowhere Man]

Nice. Duluoz posts a perfectly sane, normal, interesting story about animals, and you manage to turn it into bellyaching about liberals.

Impressive.

[mithridates]

[Gopher]

Never have one of my sig lines been more apt.

This debate, the one treating Late Pleistocene magafaunal extinctions -- as well as the larger environmental history debate in which it occurs -- has never been "about animals."

Rather, it has always been about politics -- as Duluoz rightly acknowledges in OP's second line. Moreover, the left's presence in this debate is certainly real. Just ask, to cite but one example, Jared Diamond.

Sorry neither of you seem to be informed on this subject matter. Mithridates, I would be interested in persuading you on this issue, if you like. If not, not. Let me know.

[alffy]

Actually, science is is merely another form of social expression, one that focuses on empirical studies of the material world. It is, therefore, quite intimately intertwined with philosophy and "politics" of its practitioners.

Duluoz and Gopher are correct in asserting the concept of "simple undeveloped folk lived in harmony with nature" as a philosophically and, hence, politically driven theory. It grew out of the 1960s Academy that, for the first time, was seeing the expansion of its core members. Until the 60s, academics were disproportionately white, upper class intellectuals and their science demonstrated their philosophies. But the 60s saw a revolution in which the doors to the ivory tower were thrown open and the masses let in. We see a tremendous rise in numbers of minorities and women entering the fields, and they were generally young with radical ideas.

One of the new interpretions was this concept of "man in nature." Or, I guess, more appropitely, "humans in nature." We saw a sudden and drastic interpretation that modernity was abarrant behavior and that humans had "fallen" from a state of "grace" with nature.

This interpretation was nearly as invalid as the one it replaced in which "man the hunter/toolmaker" was dominant and conquering and hence was destined to do with the world as he saw fit. Today, most archaeologists and scientists actually studying human evolution, migration, and interaction with the environment take a more practical view of the data. Humans were constantly interacting with the environment in a very intimate manner. This did involve considerable waste and abuse (by modern interpretations), but were eminently reasonable for the time and place. The Black Mountain Folsom kill site is a good example. By driving herds of buffalo (most likely by lighting controlled brush fires), you send a small herd over a cliff that kills many. After that, you simply butcher what you want and walk away- not much danger to me and my family, yet providing considerable quantities of valuable meat. Very reasonable, yet not very ecological. But then if I died taking on a single buffalo, my family would likely starve to death over time. Very unreasonable, but ecologically considerate.

What we also see, though, is some peoples, upon realizing they were destroying their environment, and thereby endangering themselves in the long run, developed new resources and means of harvesting and renewing. We actually see this with the Late Mississippians and their successors prior to contact with the Europeans- they were apparently husbanding buffalo and deer, much as we do today.

But I do caution against a "one size fits all" answer to widespread megafauna extinctions corresponding with human migrations. Undoubtedly, humans took their toll on many species, but we also are seeing a widespread ecological shift in climate, flora, and fauna that seems to indicate that most of the extinct species were under a multi-pronged attack for their existence. Humans may have just been the most salient cause of their demise. And very likely an accelerating agent as well. But highly unlikely the sole cause.

[mithridates]

[mithridates]

I think megatherium would have been the most fun to see (not about Australia now):

[Gopher]