Monday, August 14, 2006

Late-Pleistocene extinctions update Drought killed giants
DROUGHT, rather than Aborigines, killed off the giant marsupials that once roamed Australia's arid interior, research has shown.

New dating techniques used at a dig in western NSW allowed Victorian researchers to age the fossils of giant marsupials and humans, showing a 10,000-year gap between the last marsupial and first human.
Debate over the fate of mega fauna has raged in Australian archeology since mammologist and palaeontologist Dr Tim Flannery blamed human hunters in a best-selling book published a decade ago.


The article doesn't quote any critics, only that "International archaeology experts have peer reviewed the research, which will appear in the journal (subs: italics) Quaternary Research this month." Which, of course, doesn't mean that it's "accepted", just that it's worthwhile to publish. Expect the Overkill crowd to have some criticism.