Fifty millennia of catastrophic extinctions after human contact
Abstract
Debate continues to rage between enthusiasts for climate change versus humans as a cause of the catastrophic faunal extinctions that have occurred in the wake of human arrival in previously uninhabited regions of the world. A global pattern of human arrival to such landmasses, followed by faunal collapse and other ecological changes, appears without known exception. This strongly suggests to some investigators that a more interesting extinction debate lies within the realm of potential human-caused explanations and how climate might exacerbate human impacts. New observations emerging from refined dating techniques, paleoecology and modeling suggest that the megafaunal collapses of the Americas and Australia, as well as most prehistoric island biotic losses, trace to a variety of human impacts, including rapid overharvesting, biological invasions, habitat transformation and disease.
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Increasingly intensive use of animal resources is well demonstrated across both Eurasia and Africa at the end of the Pleistocene by progressive declines in larger-bodied game and growing use of smaller-bodied game, often ending in regional extinctions and associated major ecosystem shifts.
“Increasingly intensive use of animal resources is well demonstrated across both Eurasia and Africa at the end of the Pleistocene by progressive declines in larger-bodied game and growing use of smaller bodied game, often ending in regional extinctions and associated major ecosystem shifts (3, 58).”
From Used planet: a global history (2013) · cites this paper as [58]
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References 147 · Cited by 379
- Authors
- BURNEY, D., & FLANNERY, T.
- Affiliations
- National Tropical Botanical Garden (US)
- South Australian Museum (AU)
- Corresponding author
- BURNEY, D
- ORCID
- Venue
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2005-07
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 395-401
- ISSN
- 0169-5347 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2152694676
- Cited by
- 379
- References
- 147
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 96.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- human-caused extinction, human arrival, overharvesting, biological invasions, habitat conversion, disease, climate change, Australia
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