Heh heh heh. According to Nature, the evidence that the first humans here killed off Australian mega fauna (either by huntingg, or by changing the environment by burning, or both) has been getting stronger over the last decade:
I also note that Nature also uses this term:Richard Roberts, a geochronologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and biologist Barry Brook, of the University of Adelaide, Australia, say in a commentary4 in Science that "human impact was likely the decisive factor", possibly through hunting of young megafauna. Increased aridity during the last Ice Age might have reinforced this effect, but Australian megafauna were well adapted to dry conditions because they had survived repeated droughts in the past, they say.
Chris Johnson, an ecologist at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, says the direct dates from Cuddie Springs mean the site now "falls in line with a mass of other evidence" for the rapid extinction of the Australian megafauna between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Some have proposed that the ancestors of Australian Aborigines, who reached the continent between 60,000 and 45,000 years ago, rapidly hunted the animals to extinction.Will modern day aborigines use this to distinguish themselves from those who did the killing 40,000 years ago? It would be interesting if they did, given that they like to claim a culture going back that far, when it suits them.
I caught the end of a radio interview with one of the scientists involved. He was quite clear that there was no mass slaughter of the megafauna. Because of their reproductive habits the occasional killing of their young would have been enough to drive them to extinction without any suggestion of poor husbandry. He also said that they were unlikely to kill adults as they were too much trouble.
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