Intrepid Science Blog

Exciting results published today in the international science journal Nature provide precious new insights into the arrival and movement of humans across Australia over a staggering 50,000 years.  Sadly, many Aboriginal Australians no longer live where their ancestors had called home. So to better understand Australia’s history before the arrival of Europeans, a forward-thinking initiative called the Aboriginal Heritage Project was set up. Led by the University of Adelaide ’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD ) in partnership with the South Australian Museum and Aboriginal families and communities, the team – in which I was fortunate to play a small part – have uncovered some remarkable new findings.  Headed by Alan Cooper and Ray Tobler, the ACAD group analysed over 100 hair samples collected with consent from Aboriginal people across the continent between the 1920s and 1970s.  These samples were collected as part of a project where along with hair, det...

DNA evidence proves climate change killed off prehistoric megafauna Chris Turney , UNSW Australia and Alan Cooper Imagine a world populated by woolly mammoths, giant sloths and car-sized armadillos – 50,000 years ago more than 150 types of these mysterious large-bodied mammals roamed our planet. But by 10,000 years ago, two-thirds of them had disappeared. Since the end of the 19th century, scientists have puzzled over where these “megafauna” went. In 1796, the famous French palaeontologist Georges Cuvier suggested a global catastrophe had wiped them out. Others were appalled. The great Thomas Jefferson was so against Cuvier’s idea he sent an expedition to try to find vast herds of these animals grazing contentedly in the American interior. The only thing anyone could say with certainty was there should be a lot more of them than we see today. Alfred Wallace, who wrote the first paper on evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin, noted that “we live in a zoologically ...