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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chosun Juan" data-source="post: 3898687" data-attributes="member: 92780">Mysticete, thanks for your replies in this thread.What do you make of recent discoveries of archeological evidence of Aborigines in 'Australia' as far back as 100,000ya + ? and even further, cultural story of stars falling from the sky and crashing into the earth (specifically the Wolfe Creek crater - however old that is ~ up to 300,000 years + ?).Many details and links in this thread:<a href="https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=364276" target="_blank">https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=364276</a>Also to theories of 'Out of Australia' as opposed to Africa? Even on the current evidence it seems there was coexistence between Megafauna and Aborigines for 10's and 10's and 10's of 1000's of years.Elders tell me that they have been here "forever" and didn't come from anywhere .....As such, they would have seen dramatic changes in climate and environment - from wetter, lusher, volcanic  activity, to sea inundation, to glaciation, much colder and drier, to hotter, to catastrophic events like fireball earth's from meteorite strikes and resulting 'nuclear winters'. With the El Nino cycle, they would have lived through droughts (and conversely floods) lasting for decades.I recall parts of a documentary I saw that postulated that ~600 years ago there was a 3 decade long drought in Australia and correspondingly  3 decades of downpour in South America which led to the extinction of some of those South American civilizations.There was no bushfire brigade in those days (not that they can even do much today anywhere in the world when conditions are against them) , and I don't find it difficult to imagine at all that a dry lightning strike during similar conditions, which with 100km/hr winds would have burnt just about the entire country down.It seems to me that Aboriginal use of fire was a survival tool to guard against such conflagrations though 'mosaic' landscape management. Further that the slow, cool burns used were 'pyrolyzing' adding fertility to the land through charcoal and therefore building carbon in the soil rather than CO2 in the air.I'm not saying that accidents never happened though (changing weather conditions sending a controlled burn out of control, or fire being used for warfare, etc). By and large there was a sophisticated 'Aboriginal Nation' in place with advanced governance laws. The health of the 'country' (environment) was integral to the spiritual and physical health of the people.What you have said previously about slower moving, more defenseless large Megafauna and longer breeding cycles makes sense. Given the evidence of man co-habitating for millenia though, I don't think it is the 'alien species (man) invasion scenario that is often thought of. Likely environmental factors have had profound compounding effects to permanently tip the balance at some stage. Even now there is story and a palpable fear of entering certain waterholes at certain times of year (this may be reference to the megafauna pythons which may have done more to contribute to the extinction of other Megafauna in extended drought periods and then evolved to smaller species or become extinct themselves - a hypothesis to consider anyway ....) . Have a look at the next post I will make about the effect of lack of Dingoes (fenced out) and the effect that is having on the environment  (admittedly in the face of feral animals too).Chosun   :gh:</blockquote>

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