Posted on 07/19/2017 6:51:51 PM PDT by JimSEA
When and how the first humans made their way to Australia has been an evolving story.
While it is accepted that humans appeared in Africa some 200,000 years ago, scientists in recent years have placed the approximate date of human settlement in Australia further and further back in time, as part of ongoing questions about the timing, the routes and the means of migration out of Africa.
Now, a team of researchers, including a faculty member and seven students from the University of Washington, has found and dated artifacts in northern Australia that indicate humans arrived there about 65,000 years ago -- more than 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. A paper published July 20 in the journal Nature describes dating techniques and artifact finds at Madjedbebe, a longtime site of archaeological research, that could inform other theories about the emergence of early humans and their coexistence with wildlife on the Australian continent.
The new date makes a difference, co-author and UW associate professor of anthropology Ben Marwick said. Against the backdrop of theories that place humans in Australia anywhere between 47,000 and 60,000 years ago, the concept of earlier settlement calls into question the argument that humans caused the extinction of unique megafauna such as giant kangaroos, wombats and tortoises more than 45,000 years ago.
"Previously it was thought that humans arrived and hunted them out or disturbed their habits, leading to extinction, but these dates confirm that people arrived so far before that they wouldn't be the central cause of the death of megafauna," Marwick said. "It shifts the idea of humans charging into the landscape and killing off the megafauna. It moves toward a vision of humans moving in and coexisting, which is quite a different view of human evolution."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Tie me mastodon down, sport
See Randall Carlson and Graham Hancock’s work on this. Hancock is a lib Brit but Carlson is a rock ribbed conservative. Comet hit Polar Ice Cap 12,600 years ago causing the “great flood” and wiping out Mega Fauna. I find Carlson more credible but tip of the hat to Hancock for being the first to go out on the limb.
50 years ago I got a degree in Anthropology from UW. Glad to see they are doing some good work. Go Huskies!
If you go to the rest of the article at the link, you’ll likely be impressed with the U of W practice in using a multiple array of dating techniques. The laid it all out, inviting others to check their work. Quite refreshing.
The regular sized ones are bad enough, can you imagine giant ‘roos?
when australia was part of the continent
Yes I read the article. The archaeology branch of the Anthro department has advanced considerably from its amateurish efforts in the 1960’s.
I don’t think that the earlier dates cancels out the idea that humans wiped out the mega fauna.
After all Australia is a big continent , few humans made it there and their hunting techniques were not that efficient.
That was my thought. The Aborigines were always relatively small in number and never evolved beyond hunting for immediate survival.
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