- related:: [[spenglerExaptationTraitsMegafaunal2021.pdf]] - humans are responsible for the extinction of megafauna not just in Europe and North America! This counts as [[Backwards Mapping Fiction]] because it kind of reminds me of the lizards that kill off the crazy-huge snake monsters in Tanya Huff's Confederation of Valor. > [!quote] [First Australians ate giant eggs of huge flightless birds, ancient proteins confirm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220525102937.htm) via [[ScienceDaily]] via [[University of Cambridge]] on 2022-05-25 > > Scientists settle debate surrounding species that laid eggs exploited by early Australian people around 50,000 years ago. Shell proteins point to Genyornis, which was among the 'mega-fauna' to go extinct a few thousand years after humans arrived on the continent. > > Burn marks discovered on scraps of ancient shell several years ago suggested the first Australians cooked and ate large eggs from a long-extinct bird – leading to fierce debate over the species that laid them. > According to findings published in the journal _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_, the ancient eggs came from _Genyornis_: a huge flightless “mihirung” – or ‘Thunder Bird’ – with tiny wings and massive legs that roamed prehistoric Australia, possibly in flocks.   > > Fossil records show that _Genyornis_ stood over two metres tall, weighed between 220-240 kilograms, and laid melon-sized eggs of around 1.5 kg. It was among the Australian “mega-fauna” to vanish a few thousand years after humans arrived, suggesting people played a role in its extinction.   > > The earliest “robust” date for the arrival of humans to Australia is some 65,000 years ago. Burnt eggshells from the previously unconfirmed species all date to around 50 to 55 thousand years ago – not long before _Genyornis_ is thought to have gone extinct – by which time humans had spread across most of the continent_._   > > “There is no evidence of _Genyornis_ butchery in the archaeological record. However, eggshell fragments with unique burn patterns consistent with human activity have been found at different places across the continent,” said senior co-author Prof Gifford Miller from the University of Colorado. > > “This implies that the first humans did not necessarily hunt these enormous birds, but did routinely raid nests and steal their giant eggs for food,” he said. “Overexploitation of the eggs by humans may well have contributed to _Genyornis_ extinction.” > > The researchers point out that the _Genyornis_ egg exploitation behaviour of the first Australians likely mirrors that of early humans with ostrich eggs, the shells of which have been unearthed at archaeological sites across Africa dating back at least 100,000 years.  > > Prof Collins added: “While ostriches and humans have co-existed throughout prehistory, the levels of exploitation of _Genyornis_ eggs by early Australians may have ultimately proved more than the reproductive strategies of these extraordinary birds could bear.”