• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • Environmental drivers of megafauna and hominin extinction in Southeast Asia

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Embargoed until: 2021-10-07
    Author(s)
    Louys, Julien
    Roberts, Patrick
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Louys, Julien
    Year published
    2020
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Southeast Asia has emerged as an important region for understanding hominin and mammalian migrations and extinctions. High-profile discoveries have shown that Southeast Asia has been home to at least five members of the genus Homo1,2,3. Considerable turnover in Pleistocene megafauna has previously been linked with these hominins or with climate change4, although the region is often left out of discussions of megafauna extinctions. In the traditional hominin evolutionary core of Africa, attempts to establish the environmental context of hominin evolution and its association with faunal changes have long been informed by stable ...
    View more >
    Southeast Asia has emerged as an important region for understanding hominin and mammalian migrations and extinctions. High-profile discoveries have shown that Southeast Asia has been home to at least five members of the genus Homo1,2,3. Considerable turnover in Pleistocene megafauna has previously been linked with these hominins or with climate change4, although the region is often left out of discussions of megafauna extinctions. In the traditional hominin evolutionary core of Africa, attempts to establish the environmental context of hominin evolution and its association with faunal changes have long been informed by stable isotope methodologies5,6. However, such studies have largely been neglected in Southeast Asia. Here we present a large-scale dataset of stable isotope data for Southeast Asian mammals that spans the Quaternary period. Our results demonstrate that the forests of the Early Pleistocene had given way to savannahs by the Middle Pleistocene, which led to the spread of grazers and extinction of browsers—although geochronological limitations mean that not all samples can be resolved to glacial or interglacial periods. Savannahs retreated by the Late Pleistocene and had completely disappeared by the Holocene epoch, when they were replaced by highly stratified closed-canopy rainforest. This resulted in the ascendency of rainforest-adapted species as well as Homo sapiens—which has a unique adaptive plasticity among hominins—at the expense of savannah and woodland specialists, including Homo erectus. At present, megafauna are restricted to rainforests and are severely threatened by anthropogenic deforestation.
    View less >
    Journal Title
    Nature
    Volume
    586
    Issue
    7829
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2810-y
    Copyright Statement
    © 2020 Nature Publishing Group. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
    Subject
    Environmental Sciences
    Science & Technology
    Multidisciplinary Sciences
    Science & Technology - Other Topics
    PLEISTOCENE GIGANTOPITHECUS FAUNAS
    BIOAPATITE CARBONATE PRETREATMENTS
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/402368
    Collection
    • Journal articles

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander