HUMANS, rather than climate change, may have driven an ostrich-sized
Australian bird to extinction 50 000 years ago.
More than 40 Australian animals vanished at roughly the same time, but
accurately dating their bones is difficult. Instead, Gifford Miller of the
University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues have dated hundreds of
eggshell fragments from the extinct bird Genyornis (Science,
vol 283, p 205). 鈥淓ggshells are a vastly superior medium for dating,鈥� says
Miller.
The team鈥檚 results pin down the bird鈥檚 demise to the time when the Australian
climate was relatively stable but early humans were spreading across the
continent. Miller thinks that people may have hunted the birds to extinction or
wiped out their habitat.
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