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New Ages for the Last Australian Megafauna: Continent-Wide Extinction About 46,000 Years Ago
Richard G. Roberts,1*Timothy F. Flannery,2Linda K. Ayliffe,3Hiroyuki Yoshida,1Jon M. Olley,4Gavin J. Prideaux,5Geoff M. Laslett,6Alexander Baynes,7M. A. Smith,8Rhys Jones,9Barton L. Smith10
All Australian land mammals, reptiles, and birds
weighing more than 100 kilograms, and six of the seven genera with a
bodymass of 45 to 100 kilograms, perished in the late Quaternary.The
timing and causes of these extinctions remain uncertain. Wereport
burial ages for megafauna from 28 sites and infer extinctionacross the
continent around 46,400 years ago (95% confidence interval,51,200 to
39,800 years ago). Our results rule out extreme aridityat the Last
Glacial Maximum as the cause of extinction, but notother climatic
impacts; a "blitzkrieg" model of human-inducedextinction; or an
extended period of anthropogenic ecosystem disruption.
1 School of Earth Sciences, University of
Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
2 South Australian Museum, Adelaide, South Australia
5000, Australia.
3 Laboratoire des Sciences du
Climat et de l'Environnement, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
4 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organization (CSIRO) Land and Water, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
5 Department of Earth Sciences, University of
California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
6 CSIRO
Mathematical and Information Sciences, Melbourne, Victoria 3168, Australia.
7 Western Australian Museum, Perth,
Western Australia 6000, Australia.
8 National Museum
of Australia, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
9 Department of Archaeology and Natural History,
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
10 Department of Earth Sciences, La Trobe
University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
rgrobe{at}unimelb.edu.au
Present address: Department of Geology and Geophysics,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
J. Field, R. Fullagar, R. G. Roberts, H. Yoshida, T. F. Flannery, L. K. Ayliffe, J. M. Olley, G. J. Prideaux, G. M. Laslett, A. Baynes, et al. (2001)
Science
294, 7a-7
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