Papua New Guinea's Megafauna Thrived For 20,000 Years Before Mankind, New Study Hints

An enormous kangaroo that had once wandered on four legs throughout inaccessible forest within the Papua New Guinea Highlands might well have lived as early as 20,000 years ago, decades following large-bodied megafauna off mainland Australia became extinct, as per the new study.

Megafauna are enormous creatures that existed on Earth from 2.5 million to 11,700 centuries prior.

As stated by the Australian Museum, the megafauna in Australia include the massive wombat-shaped Diprotodon and the massive goanna Megalania. Wooly rhinoceroses, mammoths, cave lions, and cave bears were among the European megafauna. Megafauna in North America contained Giant Ground Sloths as well as Saber-toothed Tigers, whereas African Megafauna comprised elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses. Africa's Megafauna comprises all that survives today.

Paleontologists from Flinders University collaborated with archaeologists and geoscientists from the Australian National University to study re-examinations of megafauna remains from the rich Nombe Rock Shelter fossil deposit in Chimbu Province to have a better understanding of Papua New Guinea's impressive natural heritage.

The new research yielded updated bone ages, revealing that numerous big species of animals, as well as the extinct thylacine and even a panda-like marsupial (named Hulitherium Tomasetti), still were present within the Papua New Guinea Highlands whenever people initially arrived, potentially about approximately 60,000 years ago.

New Ancient Wildlife Discoveries

Surprisingly, two big prehistoric kangaroo genera, which include one that hopped on four legs instead of two, might just have survived in the habitat for a further 40,000 years.

"If the megafaunal do survive in Papua New Guinea's Highlands for later years compared to their counterparts, it can have happened since humanity only arrived in the Nombe shelter extremely rare and relatively small numbers until sometime after 20,000 years ago," suggests ANU Professor of Archaeological Science Tim Denham, co-lead publisher of the new research that appeared in the journal Archaeology in Oceania.

"Nombe rock shelter is the only locale in the Papua New Guinea region that is recognized to have been used by humanity for centuries. It also retains fragments of dead megafaunal species, the majority of which are peculiar to New Guinea," as Denham stated in a report from WhatsNew2Day.

Earlier Research Supporting Claims

As per research co-author Professor Gavin Prideaux of the Flinders University Paleontology Laboratory, the recent Nombe study corresponds with corroborating evidence from Kangaroo Island obtained by Flinders paleontologists and reported in the Journal of Quaternary Science in 2015, which further recommends megafaunal kangaroos might just have remained constant to around 20,000 years ago in several continent's less developed locations.

Several broad assumptions regarding megafaunal extinction timeframes, he contends, have already been "more detrimental than beneficial."

Throughout the prehistoric period, nomadic tribes of Highlands inhabitants would have frequented the Nombe rock shelter, which would be near the towns of Nongefaro, Pila, and Nola in PNG.

Archaeologists also explored the buried rock shelter in the 1960s, but the most extensive period of excavation was done between 1971 and 1980 by ANU archaeologist Dr. Mary-Jane Mountain, who also serves as the paper's author. Her first study resulted in the first complete interpretation and description of the Nombe site, and she played an essential role in defining modern knowledge of the PNG Highlands' history of mankind.

According to Professor Prideaux, those new uses of current analytical methods, or discoveries there at the Nombe site, will validate timeframes of later survival megafauna as well as the longevity of human settlement in Guinea.

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