Giant animals driven to extinction by humans

 
Australia's giant prehistoric animals, including the three-metre tall(10-foot) kangaroos, were likely wiped out by aboriginal settlers and not climate change, a researcher said on Tuesday.  The most popular theories are that climate change drove the giants to extinction more than 40,000 years ago or that the Aborigines who arrived in Australia as far back as 60,000 years ago, were responsible because of over hunting or burning the vegetation upon which the creatures fed. But new fossil evidence from the Naracoorte Caves region of South Australia state ruled out climate change as the cause, according an article published in the latest edition of the Geological Society of America's monthly journal, Geology. The research team worked in the caves indicated humans gad a hand in the animals extinction. Fossilized remains of animals that had fallen into the limestone cave system over that time were dated using two methods: optically  stimulated luminescence at Australia's University of Wollongong and uranium series dating at the University of Melbourne.
(The Hindu, 27/12/06)