Abstract
Explanations for the Upper Pleistocene extinction of megafauna from Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) remain unresolved. Extinction hypotheses have advanced climate or human-driven scenarios, in spite of over three quarters of Sahul lacking reliable biogeographic or chronologic data. Here we present new megafauna from north-eastern Australia that suffered extinction sometime after 40,100 (±1700) years ago. Megafauna fossils preserved alongside leaves, seeds, pollen and insects, indicate a sclerophyllous forest with heathy understorey that was home to aquatic and terrestrial carnivorous reptiles and megaherbivores, including the world’s largest kangaroo. Megafauna species diversity is greater compared to southern sites of similar age, which is contrary to expectations if extinctions followed proposed migration routes for people across Sahul. Our results do not support rapid or synchronous human-mediated continental-wide extinction, or the proposed timing of peak extinction events. Instead, megafauna extinctions coincide with regionally staggered spatio-temporal deterioration in hydroclimate coupled with sustained environmental change.
Highlights
Explanations for the Upper Pleistocene extinction of megafauna from Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) remain unresolved
Current explanations for megafauna extinction are based on a significant spatio-temporal gap in the vertebrate fossil record, which approximates three quarters of the area of the Sahul continent (Fig. 1e)
The combination of fauna and flora preserved within an open fossil site in Australia is rare
Summary
Explanations for the Upper Pleistocene extinction of megafauna from Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) remain unresolved. Assessing extinction chronologies using the presently available vertebrate fossil record is hampered by few reliably-dated Upper Pleistocene sites within Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) (57–29 ka) This period of time is important because it occurs at a time controversially proposed to encompass the complete continental-wide extinction of megafauna[12,13] with the peak of extinction events occurring around 42.1 ka[10,14]. Current explanations for megafauna extinction are based on a significant spatio-temporal gap in the vertebrate fossil record, which approximates three quarters of the area of the Sahul continent (Fig. 1e) This problem is most evident for central and northern Australia, and New Guinea, where no reliably-dated megafauna occur within MIS 3. This conspicuous gap has not restricted the development of generalised and polarised interpretations to explain the continental-wide extinction of the megafauna, with the prevailing extinction scenarios advancing climate change[9,20] or anthropogenic[12,14,21,22] factors
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