Bush tucker feeds an ancient mystery

HeritageDaily ^ | Tuesday, July 10, 2012 | Contributing Source: UNSW

[SunkenCiv]

As sabre tooth tigers and woolly mammoths were wandering around Europe, unique, giant prehistoric animals were living in Australia -- three metre tall kangaroos and wombat-like creatures, the size of a four-wheel drive, were just some of the curious creatures Down Under. Yet mysteriously, sometime during the last 100,000 years, they disappeared forever.

The extinction of these giant animals, known as megafauna, has generated great debate. One group advocates "human blitzkrieg" -- those asserting the first Australians hunted these beasts to extinction. Others, myself included, find there is too little evidence to confidently attribute responsibility to any particular factor. Nonetheless, climatic instability during the last ice age cannot be discounted.

Adding to the difficulty in settling the debate is the lack of fossil records -- one of the characteristics of the dry Australian continent. However, there is just one place in Australia where the fossils of megafauna are found alongside concurrent evidence of human activity: Cuddie Springs, an ancient lake near Brewarrina in north-western New South Wales. A giant flightless bird called Genyornis, the giant wombat-like Diprotodon, Komodo-sized goannas and three metre tall kangaroos are just a few of the animals identified here.

[Little Bill]

Is the Shiva rock connected to the K/T die off? I wold look it up bu I have to go out, and you are a font of wisdom.

[rawhide]

Yes, I know what I am talking about! You are right though, it is no mystery, to those who know the Bible.

[goat granny]

A gun with a big round chamber and you could shoot more than one bullet at a time....I think it goes back to the civil war days....It was not a gun you held, it sat on a stand (like a cannon does but smaller) as you pulled the trigger, the large chamber moved onto the next chamber with a bullet in it.... You just kept cranking it until it was empty.....(I am hoping I described it right)/ The gun held many bullets, and the chamber was quite large...best to look it up for proper information...