New research, available in the Royal Society Open Science journal, disproves a long-accepted explanation for why Australia’s megafauna went extinct. This group numbered giant kangaroos, and enormous wombat-like creatures. This groundbreaking study shows that today’s Indigenous Australians are not responsible for these extinctions. This punctures some long-standing narratives that have been around for 30 or 40 years.
Australia used to be the land of giants. These ranged from giant kangaroos to sheep-sized echidnas and even colossal wombat-like animals that grew up to three meters in length. These megafauna went extinct about 40,000 years ago, a chronology that has given rise to many theories about their extinction. The most popular explanation suggests that First Nations peoples drove these animals to extinction through overhunting. That is, until this new study used a new approach to science and technology to explore the fossil record for evidence against that claim.
The research team employed advanced 3D-scanning technology to analyze a fossilized tibia from a now-extinct giant kangaroo, discovered in Western Australia around the time of World War One. In the past, late-20th-century research had proven that cuts discovered on this bone represented human “butchery,” lending credence to the notion of hunting. It’s this last finding that’s most surprising, according to researchers. It’s a fascinating revelation that the cut marks very likely weren’t created while the animal was still living.
Lead researcher of the study, Professor Mike Archer, highlighted that animals like these were certainly eaten by Indigenous peoples. He said, contrary to popular belief, there’s “absolutely no evidence” to back up the idea that they endangered megafauna through overhunting. He said past assessments of the evidence were wrong. This was largely due to the fact that technology at the time was greatly lacking.
“Back in 1980, we interpreted the cut as evidence of butchery because that was the best conclusion we could draw with the tools available at the time. Thanks to advances in technology, we can now see that our original interpretation was wrong,” – Professor Mike Archer
The study authors contend that a connection to paleontology would mean Indigenous peoples placed cultural importance on fossils. They must have carried bones and teeth from dead animals for miles. This way of understanding the world implies a much more reverential and respectful relationship with nature than has been thought.
Archer strongly argued that placing the blame on First Nations peoples for the extinction of megafauna is bad faith. He even argued that climate change, not human hunting, was a more likely explanation for these extinctions. This claim is especially notable. The 17 animal species that have gone extinct since European colonisation in 1788 were all doing well pre-colonisation.
“First Nations people have been blamed for irresponsibly killing these megafauna, without a shred of hard evidence to back it up,” – Professor Mike Archer
The paper touches on a bigger issue about the broader practices of conservation in the face of ongoing extinction events. Humans probably didn’t trigger the unsustainable overhunting of Australia’s megafauna, researchers argue. If they had, we would expect a much clearer signature of deliberate hunting or butchery in the fossil assemblage. Instead, they found only this one bone.
“If humans really were responsible for unsustainably hunting Australia’s megafauna, we’d expect to find a lot more evidence of hunting or butchering in the fossil record,” – Professor Mike Archer
The results of this study act as a crucial warning sign about the unintended impacts that can emerge from conservation and extinction stories. They challenge historical assumptions while urging for a reevaluation of how past human behaviors are interpreted in relation to biodiversity loss.
