Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia

Kaars, Sander van der; Miller, Gifford H.; Turney, Chris S. M.; Cook, Ellyn J.; Nürnberg, Dirk; Schönfeld, Joachim; Kershaw, A. Peter; Lehman, Scott J.

doi:10.1038/ncomms14142

Cited by 86 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…However, the impacts of enhanced burning may have manifested in increased mangrove representation linked to increased soil erosion in the Wet Tropics uplands, suggesting another form of anthropogenic impact on the coastal lowlands. Future work should focus on analysing the ODP 820 sediments for Sporormellia content to determine if megafaunal extinction occurs in the region's coastal lowlands at a similar time as the nearby Atherton Tableland (Rule et al , ), south‐eastern Australia (Johnson et al , ) and the south‐west of Western Australia (van der Kaars et al ., ). Finally, a more detailed examination of palaeoceanographic proxies that directly compare sedimentation changes with vegetation alterations would provide greater insight into links between the marine and terrestrial environments, which would improve understanding of late Quaternary climates for the Wet Tropics region in the context of broader regional, hemispheric and global scales.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 60 000‐year record of environmental change for the Wet Tropics of north‐eastern Australia based on the ODP 820 marine core

Moss

Dunbar

Thomas

et al. 2017

J Quaternary Science

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Palynomorphs from the ODP Site 820 marine core have provided a detailed record of terrestrial environmental responses to glacial–interglacial forcing over the last 250 000 years in the Australian Wet Tropics. The development of an accurate geochronological framework for this key sequence has proved challenging. Consequently, different dominant forcing mechanism(s) have been proposed to drive environmental change in the low latitudes. A new chronology for the last 60 000 years, based on accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (14C) dates of pollen concentrate material and the existing Marine Isotope Stage boundaries (MIS 4 to 1) has been produced. This new chronology provides a robust geochronological framework for interpreting environmental records across the region. In particular, our age model helps to resolve several debates concerning the timing of climatic changes and their impacts on both the marine and the terrestrial systems, as well as possible human arrival and associated impacts on the region's ecosystems. Our findings suggest 14C dating of terrestrial pollen concentrate in marine sediments is a valuable tool for resolving major chronological uncertainties in potentially diagenetically altered marine CaCO3 sediments and should play a role in future multi‐dating strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 60 000‐year record of environmental change for the Wet Tropics of north‐eastern Australia based on the ODP 820 marine core

Moss

Dunbar

Thomas

et al. 2017

J Quaternary Science

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“…Last appearance datums for extinct North American genera (Faith & Surovell, 2009) were recalibrated using Calib 7.1 (Stuiver et al, 2018) with 2σ errors for entries that pass selection criteria established by Meltzer and Mead (1985). Dung fungi (Sporormiella and Podospora) in sedimentary archives, proxies for herbivore population, are for North America (Gill et al, 2009) and Australia (Johnson et al, 2015;van der Kaars et al, 2017). Geomagnetic field intensity during the last 70 kyr (red) combines VADM for the last 14 kyr (Pavón-Carrasco et al, 2014), VADM for 14-45 ka (Channell et al, 2018), and the PISO VADM record ) for 45-70 ka.…”

Section: Reviews Of Geophysicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ten Australian genera disappeared in the 44-to 35-ka interval based on a variety of frequentist statistical methods (including GRIWM) to determine extinction ages for 16 megafaunal genera ( Figure 2; Saltré et al, 2016). The mass extinction of megafauna at this time, including the largest-known (~3,000 kg) marsupial (Diprotodon), has been linked with climate variability and aridity (e.g., Wroe et al, 2013), although this linkage has been disputed (e.g., Saltré et al, 2016), often in favor of human predation or "overkill" (e.g., Brook & Johnson, 2006;Johnson et al, 2016;Miller et al, 2016;van der Kaars et al, 2017). It is noteworthy that the extinction age for the~200-kg flightless bird Genyornis newtoni at~35 ka ( Figure 2; Saltré et al, 2016) is younger than the~43-ka estimate given by Miller et al (2016) based on dated eggshell fragments.…”

Section: /2018rg000629mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Geomagnetic Field Intensity in Late Quaternary Evolution of Humans and Large Mammals

Channell

Vigliotti

2019

Reviews of Geophysics

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It has long been speculated that biological evolution was influenced by ultraviolet radiation (UVR) reaching the Earth's surface, despite imprecise knowledge of the timing of both UVR flux and evolutionary events. The past strength of Earth's dipole field provides a proxy for UVR flux because of its role in maintaining stratospheric ozone. The timing of Quaternary evolutionary events has become better constrained by fossil finds, improved radiometric dating, use of dung fungi as proxies for herbivore populations, and improved ages for nodes in human phylogeny from human mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes. The demise of Neanderthals at ~41 ka can now be closely tied to the intensity minimum associated with the Laschamp magnetic excursion, and the survival of anatomically modern humans can be attributed to differences in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor that has a key role in the evolutionary response to UVR flux. Fossil occurrences and dung‐fungal proxies in Australia indicate that episodes of Late Quaternary extinction of mammalian megafauna occurred close to the Laschamp and Blake magnetic excursions. Fossil and dung fungal evidence for the age of the Late Quaternary extinction in North America (and Europe) coincide with a prominent decline in geomagnetic field intensity at ~13 ka. Over the last ~200 kyr, phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes in modern humans yields nodes and bifurcations in evolution corresponding to geomagnetic intensity minima, which supports the proposition that UVR reaching Earth's surface influenced mammalian evolution with the loci of extinction controlled by the geometry of stratospheric ozone depletion.

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“…In a second study correlating dung fungus spore frequencies and megafaunal decline, van der Kaars et al . () counted Sporormiella spores from marine core sediments taken about 100 km off the southern Western Australian modern coastline in over 1000 m of water. They noted a decline in spore numbers between 45 and 43.1k 14 C a bp, and concluded these patterns indicated the demise of megafauna on the adjacent continent, invoking human hunting of megafauna as the cause.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…van der Kaars et al . () also claim there is no evidence of a major climate shift at ca . 45 ka in Australia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What does the occurrence of Sporormiella (Preussia) spores mean in Australian fossil sequences?

Dodson

Field²

2018

J Quaternary Science

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Understanding the loss of the final few species of Australian megafauna is beset by a paucity of data on human arrival, well‐provenanced megafauna, human/megafauna population range and distribution (coexistence and interaction), and the range, scale and impact of environmental changes spanning the human–megafauna period. To overcome these shortcomings, the occurrence and decline of coprophilous fungal spores of Sporormiella in sediments have been used as a proxy for extinct megaherbivores. The Sporormiella evidence is presented as the key indicator of extinction timing and these reports are often from locations where there is no known archaeological record or megafauna remains. However, interpreting fungal spore occurrence is not straightforward, as demonstrated by studies investigating taphonomy, taxonomy and the types of animal dung where Sporormiella occurs. No detailed studies on these problems exist for Australia and no evidence supporting the use of Sporormiella as a valid proxy has been reported. Here we examine the occurrence of Sporormiella spores from Cuddie Springs in south‐eastern Australia. Despite a well‐preserved suite of megafauna fossils, Sporormiella occurrence is sporadic and frequencies are low. We conclude that using Sporormiella alone as an indicator for the presence of megafauna is premature for the Australian context.

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Humans rather than climate the primary cause of Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in Australia

Cited by 86 publications

References 56 publications

A 60 000‐year record of environmental change for the Wet Tropics of north‐eastern Australia based on the ODP 820 marine core

A 60 000‐year record of environmental change for the Wet Tropics of north‐eastern Australia based on the ODP 820 marine core

The Role of Geomagnetic Field Intensity in Late Quaternary Evolution of Humans and Large Mammals

What does the occurrence of Sporormiella (Preussia) spores mean in Australian fossil sequences?

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