News Anthropology

People fired up Aussie extinctions

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Early human colonists of Australia apparently lit massive fires that reshaped the continent’s landscape nearly 50,000 years ago and drove many animal species to extinction, according to new chemical analyses of ancient emu eggs and wombat teeth.

SHELL LIFE. A broken eggshell of an extinct, flightless bird dates to 60,000 years ago, about 10,000 years before many animal species died out in Australia.