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Re:Face of ancient Australian 'giga-goose' revealed after fo... by defrost on Saturday June 15, 2024 @12:13AM (#40687478)
There's a lot of divided opinion there in the informed community, not many think that humans soley wiped out the megafauna, a good number question whether they played a significant decisive role in their demise, most think humans killed and ate a few.

What is certain is the same change in global conditions that allowed humans to walk to Australia and later filled the moat coincided with the fall off in megafauna. There's correlation, but causation??

The divided opinions:

Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia (2016) https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10511

Humans killed most of Australia’s megafauna: study (2017) https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2017/01/humans-...

Did people or climate kill off the megafauna? Actually, it was both (2019) https://theconversation.com/did-people-or-climate-kill-off-t...

Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars (2020) https://theconversation.com/humans-coexisted-with-three-tonn...

    It turns out humans coexisted with the megafauna over about 80% of south-eastern Sahul for up to 15,000 years, depending on the region in question.

    In other regions such as Tasmania, there was no such coexistence. This rules out humans as a likely driver of megafauna extinction in those areas.
Re:Face of ancient Australian 'giga-goose' revealed after fo... by sethammons on Saturday June 15, 2024 @04:43AM (#40688400)
You seem certain on something that is not certain. People likely traveled over water. Ancient people were very impressive.

From https://digital-classroom.nma.gov.au/learning-modules/ancien....

> The first people probably came to Australia from around the area that is now Timor. To get to Australia, they must have made a canoe voyage of about 90 to 150 kilometres of open water, which would have been a remarkable maritime achievement

Re:Face of ancient Australian 'giga-goose' revealed after fo... by defrost on Saturday June 15, 2024 @05:38AM (#40688606)
"Walk" as in short voyages during the time of the Sahul: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul#/media/File:Map_of_Sunda...

The timing aligns with the genetics and with artefacts: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/evidence-o...