Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T21:29:34.860Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Megamarsupial extinction: the carrying capacity argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

R. Esmée Webb
R. Esmée Webb*
Affiliation:
C/o Yamaji Language Centre, PO Box 433, Geraldton WA 6531, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An ancient and contentious debate in prehistory (Owen 1846; Lyell 1863) asks if the megafauna of newly colonized worlds was exterminated by human hunting, or whether other factors, such as changing climate, were decisive. Debate on this issue remains lively in Australia, because its harsh environments surely posed problems for very large mammals. A starting-point for this fresh look at megafaunal extinction was Flannery's (1994) adoption of the ‘blitzkrieg’ hypothesis, in which humanly caused kill-off was so rapid it left no decisive archaeological traces.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 72 , Issue 275 , March 1998 , pp. 46 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, J. 1989. When did humans first colonize Australia?, Search 20: 149–54.Google Scholar
Allen, J. 1994. Radiocarbon determinations, luminescence dating and Australian archaeology, Antiquity 68: 339–43.Google Scholar
Archer, M. (ed.) 1982. Carnivorous Marsupials. Sydney: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales.Google Scholar
Archer, M., Hand, S.J. & Godthelp, H.J. 1991 Riversleigh. Sydney: Reed.Google Scholar
Balme, J. 1979. Another discovery of Zygomaturus from the Murchison River, Western Australia, The Western Australian Naturalist 14: 144–5.Google Scholar
Baynes, A. 1995. The question ‘why did the Australian megafauna become extinct?’ is unanswerable. Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Anthropology & Archaeology. Taphonomy Symposium, Abstracts.Google Scholar
Binford, L.R. 1981. Bones: Ancient Men And Modern Myths. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bird, C.F.M. & Frankel., D. 1991. Chronology and explanation in western Victoria and southeastern South Australia, Archaeology in Oceania 26: 1–16.Google Scholar
Bowman, D.M.J.S. 1991. Can we untangle fire-megafauna-climate-human Pleistocene impacts on the Australian biota?, Archaeology in Oceania 26: 78.Google Scholar
Butlin, N.G. 1993. Economics and the Dreamtime. Sydney: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Calder, W.A. 1981. Scaling of physiological processes in homeothermic animals, Annual Review of Physiology 43: 301–22.Google Scholar
Case, T.J. 1979. Optimal body size and an animal’s diet, Acta Biotheoretica 28: 54–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, J. 1993. Late Pleistocene coasts and human migrations in the Austral region, in Spriggs, M.J.T. et al. (ed.), A Community of Culture: 43–8. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Occasional Papers in Prehistory 21.Google Scholar
Chappell, J., Head, M.J. & Magee., J.W. 1996. Beyond the radiocarbon limit in Australian archaeology and Quaternary research, Antiquity 70: 543–52.Google Scholar
Churcher, C.S. 1985. Dental functional morphology in the marsupial sabre-tooth Thylacoleo atrox (Thylacosmilidae) compared to that of felid sabre-tooths, Australian Mammalogy 8: 201–20.Google Scholar
Colinvaux, P. 1978. Why big, fierce animals are rare: An ecologist’s perspective. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Piess.Google Scholar
Damuth, J. 1981. Population density and body size in mammals, Nature 290: 699–700.Google Scholar
Dewar, R.E. 1984. Environmental productivity, population regulation and carrying capacity, American Anthropologist 86: 601–14.Google Scholar
Dodson, J.R. 1989. Late Pleistocene vegetational and environmental shifts in Australia and their bearing on faunal extinctions, Journal of Archaeological Science 16: 207–17.Google Scholar
Dodson, J.R., Fullagar, R.K.L., Furby, J.H., Jones, R. & Prosser., I. 1993. Humans and megafauna in a late Pleistocene environment from Cuddie Springs, northwestern New South Wales, Archaeology in Oceania 28: 94–9.Google Scholar
Emlen, J.M. 1966. The role of time and energy in food preference, The American Naturalist 100: 611–17.Google Scholar
Farlow, J.O. 1993. On the rareness of big, fierce animals: speculations about the body sizes, population densities and geographic ranges of predatory mammals and large carnivorous dinosaurs, American Journal of Science 293A: 167–99.Google Scholar
Finch, M.E. 1971. Thylacoleo: marsupial lion or marsupial sloth?, Australian Natural History 17: 7–11.Google Scholar
Flannery, T.F. 1989. Who killed kirlilpi? Australian Natural History 23: 234–41.Google Scholar
Flannery, T.F. 1990. Pleistocene faunal loss: implications of the aftershock for Australia’s past and future, Archaeology in Oceania 25: 45–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flannery, T.F. 1991. The mystery of the Meganesian meat-eaters, Australian Natural History 23: 722–9.Google Scholar
Flannery, T.F. 1994. The Future Eaters. Port Melbourne: Reed.Google Scholar
Fowler, C.W. & Smith, T.D., (ed.) 1981. Dynamics Of Large Mammal Populations. New York (NY): Wiley.Google Scholar
Fretwell, S.D. 1972. Populations in a Seasonal Environment. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Frison, G.C. 1991 Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. 2nd edition. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fullagar, R.L.K., Price, D.M. & head., L.M. 1996. Early human occupation of northern Australia: archaeology and thermo luminescence dating of Jinmium rockshelter, Northern Territory, Antiquity 70: 751–73.Google Scholar
Gillespie, R., Horton, D.R., Ladd, P., Macumber, P.G., Rich, T.H., Thorne, R. & Wright., R.V.S. 1978. Lancefield Swamp and the extinction of the Australian megafauna, Science 200: 1044–8.Google Scholar
Gorecki, P.P., horton, D.R., stern, N., & Wright., R.V.S. 1984. Coexistence of humans and megafauna in Australia: improved stratigraphic evidence, Archeaeology in Oceania 19: 117–19.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 1980. Vicissitudes and overkill: the development of explanations of Pleistocene extinctions, Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 3: 357–403.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 1984. Archaeological associations with extinct Pleistocene mammals in North America, Journal of Archaeological Science 11: 213–21.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 1991. Late Pleistocene mammalian extinctions in North America: taxonomy, chronology and explanations, Journal of World Prehistory 5: 193–231.Google Scholar
Guthrie, R.D. 1984. Mosaics, allelochemics and nutrients: an ecological theory of late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions, in Martin & Klein (ed.): 259–98.Google Scholar
Hallam, S.J. 1975. Fire and Hearth: A study of European usage and European usurpation in southwestern Australia. Canberra: Australian Insitute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Hecht, M.K. 1975. The morphology and relationships of the largest known terrestrial lizard, Megalania prisca Owen, from the Pleistocene of Australia, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 87: 239–49.Google Scholar
Horton, D.R. 1982. The burning question: Aborigines, fire and Australian ecosystems, Mankind 13: 237–51.Google Scholar
Horton, D.R. 1984. Red kangaroos: last of the Australian megafauna, in Martin & Klein (ed.): 639–80.Google Scholar
Horton, D.R. & Wright., R.V.S. 1981. Cuts on Lancefield bones: carnivorous Thylacoleo not humans, the cause, Archaeology in Oceania 16: 73–80.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P. 1976. A late Pleistocene and Holocene pollen diagram from Lyneh’s Crater, northeastern Queensland, Australia, New Phytologist 77: 469–98.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P. 1993. Palynology, biostratigraphy and human impact, The Artefact 16: 12–18.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P., Mckenzie, G.M. & McMinn., A. 1993. Quaternary vegetation history of northeast Queensland from pollen analysis of ODP site 133-820, Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results 133: 107–14.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G. 1978. Stone Age predation on large African bovids, Journal of Archaeological Science 6: 195–217.Google Scholar
Kurten, B. & Anderson., E. 1980. Pleistocene Mammals of North America. New York (NY): Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lourandos, H.J. 1983. Intensification: a late Pleistocene-Holocene archaeological sequence from southwestern Victoria, Archaeology in Oceania 18: 81–94.Google Scholar
Lyell, C. 1863. The geological evidences of the antiquity of man. London: Murray.Google Scholar
Marshall, L.G. 1976. Evolution of the Thylacosmilidae, extinct saber-tooth marsupials of South America, Paleobios 23: 1–30.Google Scholar
Marshall, L.G. 1978. Evolution of the Borhyaenidae, extinct South American predaceous marsupials, University of California Publications in Geological Science 117: 1–89.Google Scholar
Marshall, L.G., Webb, S.D., Sepkoski, J.J. & Raup., D.M. 1982. Mammalian evolution and the Great American Interchange, Science 215: 1351–7.Google Scholar
Martin, P.S. 1967. Prehistoric overkill, in P.S. Martin & H.E. Wright (ed.), Pleistocene Extinctions: The Search for a cause: 75–120. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, P.S. 1984. Catastrophic extinctions and late Pleistocene blitzkrieg: two radiocarbon tests, in Nitecki, M.H. (ed.), Extinctions: 153–89. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Martin, P.S. & Klein, R.G. (ed.). 1984. Quaternary Extinctions. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D.J. 1986. Pleistocene overkill and the associational critique, Journal Of Archaeological Science 13: 51–60.Google Scholar
Meltzer, D.J. & Mead., J.l 1985. Dating late Pleistocene extinctions: theoretical issues, analytical bias and substantive results, in Mead, J.I. & Meltzer, D.J. (ed.), Environments and Extinctions: 145–73. Orono (ME): Center for the Study of Early Man, University of Maine.Google Scholar
Merrilees, D. 1968. Man the destroyer: late Quaternary change in Australian marsupial fauna, Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 51: 1–24.Google Scholar
Morton, S.R. 1985. Granivory in arid regions: comparison of Australia with North and South America, Ecology 66: 1859–66.Google Scholar
Morton, S.R. & James., C.D. 1988. The diversity and abundance of lizards in arid Australia: a new hypothesis, The American Naturalist 132: 237–56.Google Scholar
Mulvaney, D.J. & White, J.P. (ed.). 1987. Australians to 1788. Sydney: Fairfax, Syme & Weldon.Google Scholar
Murray, P.F. 1984. Extinctions down under: a bestiary of extinct Australian late Pleistocene monotremes and marsupials, in Martin & Klein (ed.): 600–628.Google Scholar
Murray, P.F. 1991. The Pleistocene megafauna of Australia, in Rich, P.V. et all. (ed.), Vertebrate Palaeontology of Australasia: 1071-1164. Melbourne: Pioneer Design Studio and Monash University Publications.Google Scholar
Owen, R. 1846. A History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds. London: van Voorst.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, R.N. 1987. Pleistocene extinctions: the pivotal role of megaherbivores, Paleobiology 13: 351–62.Google Scholar
Owen-Smith, R.N. 1988. Megaherbivores: the influence of very large body size on ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pennycuick, C.J. 1979. Energy costs of locomotion and the concept of ‘foraging radius’, in Sinclair, A.R.E. & Norton-Griffiths, M. (ed.), Serengeti: Dynamics of an ecosystem: 164–84. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peters, R.H. 1983. The ecological implications of body size. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, R.H. & Mech., L.D. 1975. Behavioural and intellectual adaptations of selected mammalian predators to the problem of hunting large animals, in Tuttle, R.H. (ed.), Sociology And Psychology Of Primates: 279–300. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Pianka, E.R. 1981. Diversity and adaptive radiation in Australian desert lizards, in Keast, A. (ed.), Ecological Bioge-Ography of Australia: 1375–92. The Hague: lunk.Google Scholar
Rindos, D.J. & Webb., R.E. 1992. Modelling the initial human colonisation of Australia: perfect adaptation, cultural variability and cultural change, in Bruce, N.W. (ed.), Humans in Cities: 441–54. Perth: Centre for Human Biology, University of Western australia.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G., Jones, R. & Smith., M.A. 1994. Beyond the radiocarbon barrier in Australian prehistory, Antiquity 68: 611–16.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G., Jones, R., Spooner, N.A., Head, M.J., Murray, A.S. & Smith., M.A. 1994. 1994. The human colonisation of Australia: optical dates of 53,000 and 60,000 years bracket human arrival at Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory, Quaternary Science Reviews 13: 575–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, G. & Geissler., E.A. 1985. Late Caenozoic history of vegetation, fire, lake levels and climate, at Lake George, New South Wales, Australia, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 311: 379–447.Google Scholar
Stafford-Smith, D.M. & Pickup., G. 1990. Pattern and production in arid lands, Proceedings of the Ecological Society of Australia 16: 195–200.Google Scholar
Strahan, R. (ed.) 1983. The Australian Museum complete book of Australian mammals. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar
Taylor, C.R. 1977. The energetics of terrestrial locomotion and body size in vertebrates, in Pedley, T.J. (ed.), Scale effects in animal locomotion: 127–41. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tucker, V.A. 1975. The energetic cost of moving about, American Scientist 63: 413–19.Google Scholar
Turnbull, W.D. 1978. Another look at dental specialization in the extinct sabre-tooth marsupial, Thylacosmilus, compared with its placental counterparts, in Butler, P.M. & Joysey, K.A. (ed.), Development, function and evolution of teeth: 399–414. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Waterbolk, H. 1971. Working with radiocarbon dates, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 37(2): 15–33.Google Scholar
Webb, R.E. 1995. ODP site 820 and the initial human colonisation of Sahul, Quaternary Australasia 13/1: 13–18.Google Scholar
Webb, R.E. In preparation. Now you see it, now you don’t: identifying ‘complexity’ in the Australian archaeological record, in Janik, L. et al. (ed.), From the Jomon to Star Carr. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Webb, R.E. & Rindos., D.J. 1997. The mode and tempo of the initial human colonization of empty landmasses: Sahul and the Americas compared, in Barton, C.M. & Clark, G.A. (ed.), Rediscovering Darwin: evolutionary eheory end archaeological explanation. Washington (DC): American Anthropological Association. Archaeological Papers 7.Google Scholar
Wells, R.T., Horton, D.R. & Rogers., P. 1982. Thylacoleo Carnifex Owen (Thylacoleonidae): marsupial carnivore?, in Archer, (ed.): 573–85.Google Scholar
White, J.P. & O’Connell., J.F. 1982. A Prehistory Of Australia, New Guinea And Sahul. Sydney: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Whitney-Smith, E. 1996. Second order overkill, New World Late Pleistocene extinctions and increased continontality: a system dynamics perspective, Abstracts of the XIV Biennial AMQUA Meeting: 140. Flagstaff (AZ): Northern Arizona University.Google Scholar
Williams, E. 1988. Complex hunter-gatherers: A late Holocene example from temperate Australia. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series 423.Google Scholar
Williams, M.A.J., Dunkerley, D.L., De Deckker, P., Kershaw, A.P. & stokes., T. 1993. Quaternary Environments. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Wilson, D.S. 1976. Deducing the energy available in the environment: an application of optimal foraging theory, Biotropica 8: 96–103.Google Scholar
Wright, R.V.S. 1986. New light on the extinction of the Australian megafauna, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 109: 1–9.Google Scholar