in 1984 paleontologist dr. Peter Murray
encounters an extraordinary painting in
Arnhem Land in remote northern Australia
it was an incredibly ancient painting
older than I’d seen anywhere else in
Arnhem Land what I began to realise what
this painting was depicting I was of
course stunned really he sees an
unidentified animal from the aboriginal
Dreamtime stories with a small trunk
short robust limbs and a well-developed
tail to Murray it bears a startling
resemblance to pallor testes an extinct
mega beast using the literature that was
available to us in the specimens that
were currently in museums most of which
were very fragmentary it was one fervent
hope that we might eventually find a
very complete specimen to help us refine
our reconstructions of it to compare
with this painting it takes years of
searching to find the right specimen I
actually was not the one who discovered
it however it was one of my colleagues
and we were very surprised and delighted
to see that everything was intact the
skull verifies that the creature
depicted in the rock art was indeed real
it’s a major discovery for the team the
painting confirms that humans and mega
beasts shared a time and a place in the
Australian outback
the arrival of humans to North America
and to Madagascar also coincides with a
mass extinction of animals it’s a
coincidence that has led to the
Blitzkrieg theory a lightning war so
Swift it annihilated the mega beasts
it’s based on the assumption that humans
will always exploit a food source the
theory claims that the Aborigines hunted
the mega beasts to extinction
through efficient and systematic
persecution when humans arrived in
Australia it essentially increased
almost by 50% the number of big
predators on the landscape so I just by
virtue of their presence and their need
to eat and sustain their own populations
it would have impacted on the megafauna
encounters an extraordinary painting in
Arnhem Land in remote northern Australia
it was an incredibly ancient painting
older than I’d seen anywhere else in
Arnhem Land what I began to realise what
this painting was depicting I was of
course stunned really he sees an
unidentified animal from the aboriginal
Dreamtime stories with a small trunk
short robust limbs and a well-developed
tail to Murray it bears a startling
resemblance to pallor testes an extinct
mega beast using the literature that was
available to us in the specimens that
were currently in museums most of which
were very fragmentary it was one fervent
hope that we might eventually find a
very complete specimen to help us refine
our reconstructions of it to compare
with this painting it takes years of
searching to find the right specimen I
actually was not the one who discovered
it however it was one of my colleagues
and we were very surprised and delighted
to see that everything was intact the
skull verifies that the creature
depicted in the rock art was indeed real
it’s a major discovery for the team the
painting confirms that humans and mega
beasts shared a time and a place in the
Australian outback
the arrival of humans to North America
and to Madagascar also coincides with a
mass extinction of animals it’s a
coincidence that has led to the
Blitzkrieg theory a lightning war so
Swift it annihilated the mega beasts
it’s based on the assumption that humans
will always exploit a food source the
theory claims that the Aborigines hunted
the mega beasts to extinction
through efficient and systematic
persecution when humans arrived in
Australia it essentially increased
almost by 50% the number of big
predators on the landscape so I just by
virtue of their presence and their need
to eat and sustain their own populations
it would have impacted on the megafauna
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