Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton

Thorne, Alan; Grün, Rainer; Mortimer, Graham; Spooner, Nigel A.; Simpson, John; McCulloch, Malcolm T.; Taylor, Lois; Curnoe, Darren

doi:10.1006/jhev.1999.0305

Cited by 304 publications

(164 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Thus, a likely period for human population expansion out of equatorial Africa (especially up a Nilotic corridor from tropical to North Africa) would have been during the climatic ''crossover'' time, between Ϸ90 and 70 ka, when intermediate precipitation regimes would have prevailed throughout Africa. This interval is long enough to accommodate a zone of contiguous habitability during a genetic ''sweep'' up the Nile (65) and early enough to accommodate even early proposed arrivals of humans into Australia (70). It is also consistent with the idea (71) that the earlier (Ϸ125 ka) documented occurrence of modern humans in North Africa and the Levant represents ultimately unsuccessful ''excursions'' out of Africa.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Ecological consequences of early Late Pleistocene megadroughts in tropical Africa

Cohen¹,

Stone

Beuning

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

258

187

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This resulted in extraordinarily low lake levels, even in Africa's deepest lakes. On the basis of well dated paleoecological records from Lake Malawi, which reflect both local and regional conditions, we show that this aridity had severe consequences for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. During the most arid phase, there was extremely low pollen production and limited charred-particle deposition, indicating insufficient vegetation to maintain substantial fires, and the Lake Malawi watershed experienced cool, semidesert conditions (<400 mm/yr precipitation). Fossil and sedimentological data show that Lake Malawi itself, currently 706 m deep, was reduced to an Ϸ125 m deep saline, alkaline, well mixed lake. This episode of aridity was far more extreme than any experienced in the Afrotropics during the Last Glacial Maximum (Ϸ35-15 ka). Aridity diminished after 95 ka, lake levels rose erratically, and salinity/alkalinity declined, reaching near-modern conditions after 60 ka. This record of lake levels and changing limnological conditions provides a framework for interpreting the evolution of the Lake Malawi fish and invertebrate species flocks. Moreover, this record, coupled with other regional records of early Late Pleistocene aridity, places new constraints on models of Afrotropical biogeographic refugia and early modern human population expansion into and out of tropical Africa. cichlid evolution ͉ Lake Malawi ͉ Out-of-Africa Hypothesis ͉ paleoclimate ͉ paleolimnology

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Ecological consequences of early Late Pleistocene megadroughts in tropical Africa

Cohen¹,

Stone

Beuning

et al. 2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

258

187

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“…For example, there is another similarly preserved possible male specimen from the Willandra Lakes, Lake Mungo 3 (LM 3) (Bowler and Thorne, 1976), which according to several absolute dates of 43 ka up to ϳ 60 ka (Thorne et al, 1999;Bowler and Magee, 2000) is more likely to represent the original inhabitants of Australia and would thus have been a much better focus for Hawks et al's (2000) and Wolpoff et al's (2001) tests. According to Wolpoff (1999: p. 736 -738), this fossil does not reflect Indonesian H. erectus/Australian H. sapiens continuity because it is gracile and has a well-rounded forehead, thin vault bone, weak muscle attachments, and weak supraorbital development.…”

Section: Specimensmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the reliability of recent tests of the Out of Africa hypothesis for modern human origins

2004

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In this paper we critique two recent studies that have been claimed to disprove the Out of Africa hypothesis for modern human origins (Hawks et al., 2000;Wolpoff et al., 2001). We show that the test prediction employed by Hawks et al. (2000) and Wolpff et al. (2001) is not relevant to many versions of the Out of Africa hypothesis, and that the key specimens they used are problematic in terms of morphological representativeness. We also show that there are significant problems with the character state datasets employed in the studies. Lastly, we highlight evidence that the main method used in the studies (pairwise difference analysis) is not reliable when applied to the type of data employed by Hawks et al. (2000) and Wolpoff et al. (2001). In view of the foregoing, we contend that Hawks et al. 's (2000) and Wolpoff et al.'s (2001) claim to have disproved the Out of Africa hypothesis cannot be sustained.

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“…There is debate over both the timing of human arrival and of megafauna extinctions in Australia (see Thorne et al 1999;Field et al 2001;Roberts et al 2001;Wroe et al 2002), and it may be many years before the pattern of temporal overlap can be satisfactorily resolved for this case. Thus, it may be that palaeontological and archaeological data will not be able to settle arguments over the causes of megafauna extinctions in the near future, and it is important that independent tests be applied to the question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of loss of mammal species during the Late Quaternary ‘megafauna’ extinctions: life history and ecology, but not body size

Johnson

2002

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

238

182

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Extinctions of megafauna species during the Late Quaternary dramatically reduced the global diversity of mammals. There is intense debate over the causes of these extinctions, especially regarding the extent to which humans were involved. Most previous analyses of this question have focused on chronologies of extinction and on the archaeological evidence for human-megafauna interaction. Here, I take an alternative approach: comparison of the biological traits of extinct species with those of survivors. I use this to demonstrate two general features of the selectivity of Late Quaternary mammal extinctions in Australia, Eurasia, the Americas and Madagascar. First, large size was not directly related to risk of extinction; rather, species with slow reproductive rates were at high risk regardless of their body size. This finding rejects the 'blitzkrieg' model of overkill, in which extinctions were completed during brief intervals of selective hunting of large-bodied prey. Second, species that survived despite having low reproductive rates typically occurred in closed habitats and many were arboreal or nocturnal. Such traits would have reduced their exposure to direct interaction with people. Therefore, although this analysis rejects blitzkrieg as a general scenario for the mammal megafauna extinctions, it is consistent with extinctions being due to interaction with human populations.

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Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton

Cited by 304 publications

References 38 publications

Ecological consequences of early Late Pleistocene megadroughts in tropical Africa

Ecological consequences of early Late Pleistocene megadroughts in tropical Africa

On the reliability of recent tests of the Out of Africa hypothesis for modern human origins

Determinants of loss of mammal species during the Late Quaternary ‘megafauna’ extinctions: life history and ecology, but not body size

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