**Australia’s First Peoples: Early Paleontologists, Not Extinction-Driving Butchers, New Study Suggests**
For decades, the debate over whether the first humans to inhabit present-day Australia contributed to the extinction of the country’s ancient megafauna has raged on. A group of scientists now argues that Australia’s First Peoples were more early paleontologists than extinction-driving butchers.
Humans arrived at the landmass known as Sahul around 65,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch. At that time, Sahul was home to giant animals including huge marsupials, giant flightless birds, and monitor lizards up to five meters long.
A fresh analysis of a fossil central to this long-standing debate overturns what was considered a “smoking gun” supporting the idea that the First Peoples hunted these giant animals, according to authors publishing October 22 in *Royal Society Open Science*. Instead, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting the First Peoples collected and traded fossils.
“We have millions of fossils of megafauna animals in museums all around Australia and not one of them provides evidence that any one of them was killed by a human,” says Michael Archer, a paleontologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “That’s not to say that it didn’t happen. All we’re saying is there’s certainly no evidence for mass slaughter.”
### The Fossil in Question
The main fossil in question is the tibia of a now-extinct giant short-faced kangaroo, first collected from Mammoth Cave in Western Australia in the early 20th century. Archer first encountered this bone as a graduate student in the 1960s. He discovered a strange V-shaped notch on the bone that had been hidden under a layer of calcium carbonate.
In 1980, Archer and his colleagues published a paper interpreting this cut as hard evidence of butchery. However, as other claims of ancient butchery later emerged that were “easily explained by animal bites,” and as Archer learned more about Indigenous land management strategies, the original conclusion began to haunt him.
“It’s been gnawing away at me for years,” Archer admits.
### New Analysis Challenges Old Interpretation
In the new study, Archer and his colleagues used 3-D imaging and microscopic analysis to reinvestigate the notch. This revealed nine deep cracks running through the bone, which formed as it fossilized and shrank over time. Another lateral crack, created by the impact that made the notch, intersects these others but abruptly stops. This suggests that both the notch and cracks occurred after the animal was already dead.
Rather than evidence of butchery, the authors propose that the notch may have resulted from curious First Peoples trying to extract the fossil from the cave some 55,000 years ago.
### A Renewed Perspective on First Peoples’ Interaction with Megafauna
Michelle Langley, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane, welcomes this reexamination of the bone. While she agrees with the reinterpretation of the notch, she notes that the question of whether First Peoples hunted megafauna remains unresolved.
“We may simply have not found the site which will answer that question as yet, if there is one,” Langley comments.
### Fossils as Cultural Objects
The researchers also examined the tooth of an ancient wombat-like marsupial known as a diprotodontid (Zygomaturus trilobus). The tooth was part of a charm used by First Peoples, believed to improve the availability of food. Gifted to one of the researchers in the northwestern town of Derby, X-ray analysis revealed a close match with others from the same species found in Mammoth Cave, further suggesting it originated from the same region.
This finding adds to previous evidence that First Peoples collected, transported, and showed a keen interest in fossils.
### Shifting the Narrative
“This should fundamentally shift the prevailing narrative from one of barbarous butchers killing indiscriminately, to one recognizing a sophisticated and interconnected conglomeration of societies, each with nuanced beliefs, customs, and traditions,” says James McCallum, a First Nations paleontologist at the University of New South Wales who was not involved in the study.
“The value placed on symbolic art, trade, and cooperation stands as testament to these networks, as evidenced by numerous fossils,” McCallum adds.
—
This new research invites us to reconsider the role of Australia’s First Peoples—not as agents of extinction, but as early custodians of natural history and culture with a deep and nuanced connection to their environment.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bone-indigenous-fossil-collectors