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>Is it not still possible that human populations increased This doesn't seem convincing to me, Indigenous Australian populations maxed out around 1 million peo

by 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.

by tray5 9y ago

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.