RESUMO
Around 88 large vertebrate taxa disappeared from Sahul sometime during the Pleistocene, with the majority of losses (54 taxa) clearly taking place within the last 400,000 years. The largest was the 2.8-ton browsing Diprotodon optatum, whereas the â¼100- to 130-kg marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex, the world's most specialized mammalian carnivore, and Varanus priscus, the largest lizard known, were formidable predators. Explanations for these extinctions have centered on climatic change or human activities. Here, we review the evidence and arguments for both. Human involvement in the disappearance of some species remains possible but unproven. Mounting evidence points to the loss of most species before the peopling of Sahul (circa 50-45 ka) and a significant role for climate change in the disappearance of the continent's megafauna.
Assuntos
Mudança Climática , Extinção Biológica , Vertebrados , Animais , Arqueologia , Austrália , História Antiga , Atividades Humanas/história , Humanos , Nova Guiné , Paleontologia/métodos , Especificidade da EspécieRESUMO
Grinding stones and ground stone implements are important technological innovations in later human evolution, allowing the exploitation and use of new plant foods, novel tools (e.g., bone points and edge ground axes) and ground pigments. Excavations at the site of Madjedbebe recovered Australia's (if not one of the world's) largest and longest records of Pleistocene grinding stones, which span the past 65 thousand years (ka). Microscopic and chemical analyses show that the Madjedbebe grinding stone assemblage displays the earliest known evidence for seed grinding and intensive plant use, the earliest known production and use of edge-ground stone hatchets (aka axes), and the earliest intensive use of ground ochre pigments in Sahul (the Pleistocene landmass of Australia and New Guinea). The Madjedbebe grinding stone assemblage reveals economic, technological and symbolic innovations exemplary of the phenotypic plasticity of Homo sapiens dispersing out of Africa and into Sahul.
Assuntos
Osso e Ossos , Tecnologia , África , Arqueologia , Austrália , Humanos , Nova GuinéRESUMO
The emergence of agriculture was one of the most notable behavioral transformations in human history, driving innovations in technologies and settlement globally, referred to as the Neolithic. Wetland agriculture originated in the New Guinea highlands during the mid-Holocene (8000 to 4000 years ago), yet it is unclear if there was associated behavioral change. Here, we report the earliest figurative stone carving and formally manufactured pestles in Oceania, dating to 5050 to 4200 years ago. These discoveries, at the highland site of Waim, occur with the earliest planilateral axe-adzes in New Guinea, the first evidence for fibercraft, and interisland obsidian transfer. The combination of symbolic social systems, complex technologies, and highland agricultural intensification supports an independent emergence of a Neolithic ~1000 years before the arrival of Neolithic migrants (Lapita) from Southeast Asia.
Assuntos
Agricultura/história , Agricultura/métodos , Geografia , História Antiga , Humanos , Invenções , Nova Guiné , Oceania , Dinâmica Populacional , Datação Radiométrica , Solo/químicaRESUMO
Recent claims for continent wide disappearance of megafauna at 46.5 thousand calendar years ago (ka) in Australia have been used to support a "blitzkrieg" model, which explains extinctions as the result of rapid overkill by human colonizers. A number of key sites with megafauna remains that significantly postdate 46.5 ka have been excluded from consideration because of questions regarding their stratigraphic integrity. Of these sites, Cuddie Springs is the only locality in Australia where megafauna and cultural remains are found together in sequential stratigraphic horizons, dated from 36-30 ka. Verifying the stratigraphic associations found here would effectively refute the rapid-overkill model and necessitate reconsideration of the regional impacts of global climatic change on megafauna and humans in the lead up to the last glacial maximum. Here, we present geochemical evidence that demonstrates the coexistence of humans and now-extinct megafaunal species on the Australian continent for a minimum of 15 ka.