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Revisiting the late Pleistocene mammal extinction record at Tight Entrance Cave, southwestern Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

J. Tyler Faith  and
James F. O'Connell
J. Tyler Faith*
Affiliation:
Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University, 2110 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20052 USA
James F. O'Connell
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, 270 South 1400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
*
⁎Corresponding author. Fax: + 1 202 994 6097. E-mail address:tfaith@gwu.edu (J. T. Faith).
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Abstract

Tight Entrance Cave (TEC) in southwestern Australia provides a Pleistocene sequence documenting the extinction of 14 large mammal species. This record has been interpreted as indicating that extinctions did not occur during or before the penultimate glacial maximum (PGM) and that humans played a primary role in the extinctions. However, it remains possible that the majority of extinct megafauna persisted no later than the PGM. The TEC extinctions correspond with vegetation change, a cooling/drying trend, increased biomass burning, and increasingly unstable small mammal communities. The initiation of these trends predates human arrival on the continent and implies environmentally mediated extinctions.

Keywords

Quaternary extinctionsMegafaunaCimate changeFireOverkillSahul
Type
Short Paper
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , November 2011 , pp. 397 - 400
Copyright
University of Washington

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