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“It puts to bed the whole idea that humans wiped them (megafauna) out,” said Dr. Clarkson. “We’re talking 20,000 to 25,000 years of coexistence.” Does it? Is i

“It puts to bed the whole idea that humans wiped them (megafauna) out,” said Dr. Clarkson. “We’re talking 20,000 to 25,000 years of coexistence.” Does it? Is it not still possible that human populations increased, new (less mgafauna friendly) cultures emerged or subsequent migrations caused one of these? Humans co-existed with large animals in many places, before causing extinctions at later points.

flukus 9y ago
Multiple migration theories have been all but put to bed I think, but the current theory seems to be that the migration path was mostly coastal and only pushing inland later. That leaves plenty of room for humans to be the cause of extinction. I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that humans are the cause, it seems to be a part of the noble savage myth.
- tray5 9y ago
  >I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that humans are the cause, it seems to be a part of the noble savage myth. Because there's not enough evidence to make that claim. The structure of indigenous societies were nomadic hunter gatherers who were (as far as the evidence tells us) subsistence hunters. Truth is Indigenous Australians didn't have the population (or population density), nor the culture to hunt these creatures to extinction. Being largely nomadic within set ranges (i.e they travelled often but within their own nations land) it was suicidal to overhunt and deplete the resources, and this becomes a stronger point when you consider the timeframes on which the Aborigines existed on their land (again 20,000 years of overlap here). Also consider the sheer number of creatures that went extinct here, everything from Marsupial Lions to gigantic emus and echidnas, it doesn't match up with indigenous australians hunting behaviours that somehow they decided to overkill for this short period of time all these larger creatures, and then that behaviour suddenly stopped? (we have no evidence of Indigenous Australian's overhunting any other creatures to extinction). To go even further, there's nothing in their oral history or paintings which gives the slightest hint that overhunting or hunting for status was ever present in any Indigenous Australian culture. Considering the ice age ended around the same time as the death of the last megafauna in Australia, I think its fair to evaluate every conclusion you make about the death of the megafauna within that context. I'm not saying Indigenous Australians didn't have an effect on the death of the megafauna, anything being hunted in a time like a massive climate shift is going to affect population, but there's no direct evidence, nor indirect evidence about the behaviour and cultures of Indigenous Australia which point to mankind being the driver behind the numerous extinctions.
  - aleksei 9y ago
    I'm under the impression that there's simply not enough evidence to make a claim either way, exactly because there's no direct or indirect evidence in terms of culture or artifact. I really can't see how you can argue that there was no overhunting given you concede there's no knowing, and it comes across as if you just don't feel comfortable with human causes. Edit: the last sentence might come across as aggressive, it was merely my observation.
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  There is a fairly strong political urge to not blame indigenous peoples for the extinctions in Australia. It's part of the "noble savage" myth, as you say. Very much to do with a narrative about indigenous peoples living in harmony with their environment unlike us stupid modern people who are destroying it. This is linked with indigenous rights, native title, and a whole bunch of really deep-rooted issues in Australian culture. Aborigines living in the bush are revered, those living in the cities are despised. Australia takes pride in the fact that we have the longest continuous culture on the planet, whilst simultaneously doing everything possible to destroy that same culture. It's very complicated and very political. Unless the science says definitively that humans were the cause for the extinctions, then the default position is that they weren't.
tray5 9y ago
>Is it not still possible that human populations increased This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million people, across the entire island. Considering the population density and ranges of these creatures, I don't see how they could physically do so. > new (less mgafauna friendly) cultures emerged It's important to remember Australia's isolation here and the cultures of Indigenous Australia. All Indigenous Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers, with a deep seated animalistic dreamtime belief system, it doesn't make sense that a new culture suddenly rose up and caused mass extinctions, as all of these cultures remained within their land ranges, and without evidence of widescale war in Indigenous Australia, I don't see how this would happen. >or subsequent migrations caused one of these? Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- autokad 9y ago
  > Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age. north america and asia are big, but it seems very possible that (with other factors) humans helped push mammoths to extinction. you are also assuming equal dispersion across Australia, which may not be the case, especially if climate change was cutting back their habitats - like it was with the mammoth.
- Jedd 9y ago
  I understand that the science doesn't conclusively prove either claim (or somewhere midway) between definitely human caused or definitely not. > This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million people, across the entire island. Considering the population density and ranges of these creatures, I don't see how they could physically do so. Do we know of any comparable, but better understood / researched cultures, where population numbers plateauing were not directly correlated with local extinction events -- but did occur some time after the plateauing? Of course it's confounded by trying to estimate numbers from tens of millenia ago, climate and volcanic events, and so on, but I feel there must be some other peoples / regions on the planet that can we can compare to. As to the last point, initiating regular large fires is one way for a small number of people to effect significant landscape change. > All Indigenous Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers, with a deep seated animalistic dreamtime belief system, it doesn't make sense that a new culture suddenly rose up and caused mass extinctions ... Keep in mind that there were around 250 different languages, reflecting the long-term isolation of many of these groups, and presumably at least that many different variations of 'the culture'. I think it's careless to assume a single, shared, and fully understood, culture existed across the entire continent for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years ago. And I don't think anyone's suggesting that a 'new culture rose up and decided to eat all the giant wombats'. > Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. True, but consider that today at least, about 5% of the landmass is considered arable, which IIRC puts us on a par with, say, France in terms of absolute arable land. While grazing animals obviously don't require arable land per se, it helps to contextualise the landscape here -- there's immense areas of the country that are inhospitable to humans and large animals. Almost all the useful (in terms of finding things to eat and drink) land is around the coast. Migrations of humans and megafauna doubtless occurred in response to local events, climate changes, curiosity, etc - but there are obvious constraints by and to both groups' movements due to this coastal limitation.
curtis 9y ago
I can't give you a citation but I'm under the impression that many scientists who are interested in megafauna extinction actual subscribe to a hybrid theory, namely that megafauna extinction was often the result of both human hunting and climate change happening at the same time, which could stress megafauna populations far more than just one or the other.

flukus 9y ago

Multiple migration theories have been all but put to bed I think, but the current theory seems to be that the migration path was mostly coastal and only pushing inland later. That leaves plenty of room for humans to be the cause of extinction. I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that humans are the cause, it seems to be a part of the noble savage myth.

tray5 9y ago
>I really don't understand why it's so hard to accept that humans are the cause, it seems to be a part of the noble savage myth. Because there's not enough evidence to make that claim. The structure of indigenous societies were nomadic hunter gatherers who were (as far as the evidence tells us) subsistence hunters. Truth is Indigenous Australians didn't have the population (or population density), nor the culture to hunt these creatures to extinction. Being largely nomadic within set ranges (i.e they travelled often but within their own nations land) it was suicidal to overhunt and deplete the resources, and this becomes a stronger point when you consider the timeframes on which the Aborigines existed on their land (again 20,000 years of overlap here). Also consider the sheer number of creatures that went extinct here, everything from Marsupial Lions to gigantic emus and echidnas, it doesn't match up with indigenous australians hunting behaviours that somehow they decided to overkill for this short period of time all these larger creatures, and then that behaviour suddenly stopped? (we have no evidence of Indigenous Australian's overhunting any other creatures to extinction). To go even further, there's nothing in their oral history or paintings which gives the slightest hint that overhunting or hunting for status was ever present in any Indigenous Australian culture. Considering the ice age ended around the same time as the death of the last megafauna in Australia, I think its fair to evaluate every conclusion you make about the death of the megafauna within that context. I'm not saying Indigenous Australians didn't have an effect on the death of the megafauna, anything being hunted in a time like a massive climate shift is going to affect population, but there's no direct evidence, nor indirect evidence about the behaviour and cultures of Indigenous Australia which point to mankind being the driver behind the numerous extinctions.
- aleksei 9y ago
  I'm under the impression that there's simply not enough evidence to make a claim either way, exactly because there's no direct or indirect evidence in terms of culture or artifact. I really can't see how you can argue that there was no overhunting given you concede there's no knowing, and it comes across as if you just don't feel comfortable with human causes. Edit: the last sentence might come across as aggressive, it was merely my observation.
marcus_holmes 9y ago
There is a fairly strong political urge to not blame indigenous peoples for the extinctions in Australia. It's part of the "noble savage" myth, as you say. Very much to do with a narrative about indigenous peoples living in harmony with their environment unlike us stupid modern people who are destroying it. This is linked with indigenous rights, native title, and a whole bunch of really deep-rooted issues in Australian culture. Aborigines living in the bush are revered, those living in the cities are despised. Australia takes pride in the fact that we have the longest continuous culture on the planet, whilst simultaneously doing everything possible to destroy that same culture. It's very complicated and very political. Unless the science says definitively that humans were the cause for the extinctions, then the default position is that they weren't.

tray5 9y ago

>Is it not still possible that human populations increased This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million people, across the entire island. Considering the population density and ranges of these creatures, I don't see how they could physically do so. > new (less mgafauna friendly) cultures emerged It's important to remember Australia's isolation here and the cultures of Indigenous Australia. All Indigenous Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers, with a deep seated animalistic dreamtime belief system, it doesn't make sense that a new culture suddenly rose up and caused mass extinctions, as all of these cultures remained within their land ranges, and without evidence of widescale war in Indigenous Australia, I don't see how this would happen. >or subsequent migrations caused one of these? Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
autokad 9y ago
> Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. Like really big, and most of these creatures had wide ranges. I don't find the human hypothesis has enough stock to stand up under scrutiny, especially considering these extinctions happened at the end of an ice age. north america and asia are big, but it seems very possible that (with other factors) humans helped push mammoths to extinction. you are also assuming equal dispersion across Australia, which may not be the case, especially if climate change was cutting back their habitats - like it was with the mammoth.
Jedd 9y ago
I understand that the science doesn't conclusively prove either claim (or somewhere midway) between definitely human caused or definitely not. > This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million people, across the entire island. Considering the population density and ranges of these creatures, I don't see how they could physically do so. Do we know of any comparable, but better understood / researched cultures, where population numbers plateauing were not directly correlated with local extinction events -- but did occur some time after the plateauing? Of course it's confounded by trying to estimate numbers from tens of millenia ago, climate and volcanic events, and so on, but I feel there must be some other peoples / regions on the planet that can we can compare to. As to the last point, initiating regular large fires is one way for a small number of people to effect significant landscape change. > All Indigenous Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers, with a deep seated animalistic dreamtime belief system, it doesn't make sense that a new culture suddenly rose up and caused mass extinctions ... Keep in mind that there were around 250 different languages, reflecting the long-term isolation of many of these groups, and presumably at least that many different variations of 'the culture'. I think it's careless to assume a single, shared, and fully understood, culture existed across the entire continent for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years ago. And I don't think anyone's suggesting that a 'new culture rose up and decided to eat all the giant wombats'. > Not really, again 20,000 years and Australia is a big, big place. True, but consider that today at least, about 5% of the landmass is considered arable, which IIRC puts us on a par with, say, France in terms of absolute arable land. While grazing animals obviously don't require arable land per se, it helps to contextualise the landscape here -- there's immense areas of the country that are inhospitable to humans and large animals. Almost all the useful (in terms of finding things to eat and drink) land is around the coast. Migrations of humans and megafauna doubtless occurred in response to local events, climate changes, curiosity, etc - but there are obvious constraints by and to both groups' movements due to this coastal limitation.

curtis 9y ago

I can't give you a citation but I'm under the impression that many scientists who are interested in megafauna extinction actual subscribe to a hybrid theory, namely that megafauna extinction was often the result of both human hunting and climate change happening at the same time, which could stress megafauna populations far more than just one or the other.