Human hunting, not the Ice Age, wiped out Australian megafauna

Mickeroo

A study has shown that the introduction of humans to Australia caused the extinction of a huge range of flamin' massive animals which had managed to survive 100,000 years of climate change:

The basis for the charge rests on two mud cores—one stretching from around 130,000 years ago to 24,000 years ago and the other ranging from roughly 50,000 years ago 3,000 years ago. The long core reveals how the local environment reacted to two previous periods of cooling and drying. Judging by the Sporormiella fungus—which only releases its spores when in the dung of plant-eating animals—big animals fared well during these climatic changes, munching happily on the changing vegetation of the area.

That changed roughly 41,000 years ago, when the number of spores in the core "dropped almost to zero," the researchers wrote. The record in mud also notes an increase in charcoal from large-scale fires and new types of vegetation—eucalyptus trees and the like with grasses beneath, much as seen today. A shift in climate could alter plant populations, but this vegetation change actually precedes by roughly 10,000 years the most recent climate shift within the core's age, to cooler and drier conditions. "Climate change played no role in megafaunal extinction in Australia," Johnson concludes.

More here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hunters-killed-off-big-animals-australia