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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Early humans (1 Viewer)

May not have been responsible for the extinction of some ancient mammals?

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46306622

I personally, doubt that early humans were abundant enough or successful enough hunters, to have brought about such extinctions?

What they say may well be the truth, but not-so-early man in small numbers had a devastating effect in Australia: weapons kill things one at a time but fire is less discriminating and thought to be responsible for effects up to habitat change at landscape scale in Australia - and the consequent extinctions.

When did early hominids start using fire as a hunting tool in Africa? I'm guessing that might be impossible to determine, but could be significant.

John
 
What they say may well be the truth, but not-so-early man in small numbers had a devastating effect in Australia: weapons kill things one at a time but fire is less discriminating and thought to be responsible for effects up to habitat change at landscape scale in Australia - and the consequent extinctions.

When did early hominids start using fire as a hunting tool in Africa? I'm guessing that might be impossible to determine, but could be significant.

John

John, surely fire has been a part of the natural cycle in Australia from the start of things?

Later man had a far greater impact with the introduction of alien predators, especially in NZ.
 
John, surely fire has been a part of the natural cycle in Australia from the start of things?
Not necessarily - when you have a large population of megaherbivores, plant litter is unlikely to accumulate enough to support fires easily.


Start removing even just a few of them, and plant litter starts accumulating, and then major fires start, killing off more animals and making the situation worse fast.
 
On the other hand, spread of grassland in Africa could itself be the result of early hominids mastering fire...
 
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