Visiting vertebrate palaeoecologist Dr Julien Louys will be visiting the University of Adelaide. Dr Louys is from Griffith University and is the Executive Editor of the scientific journal Palaeontologia Electronica.

Title: Extinctions along the last leg of the first great human migration
When: 6:00pm – Thursday, 12th September 2019
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, Mawson Building, University of Adelaide, North Terrace
RSVP: Not required but please add to your calendar

Abstract:
The journey of the first humans through Southeast Asia and into Australia represents the last leg of a migration event that began thousands of years before, and as many kilometres away. It involved the first occupation of rainforests outside of Africa and the earliest evidence of significant sea crossings. Over this route, humans encountered fauna both familiar and new. However, human impact on mammal extinctions are generally ignored or overlooked in most global syntheses of Late Pleistocene extinctions.

This is despite the region experiencing many significant losses, many of which are continuing today. Because gathering these data involves fieldwork in remote and often very difficult to access terrains, they are rarely collected. Nevertheless, new explorations, excavations, and analyses of archaeological and palaeontological records in ancient Sunda and Wallacea are beginning to shed important new light on drivers of extinctions in Southeast Asia. The information gathered from these expeditions are critical for understanding the global megafauna extinction event and developing strategies for conservation of the species we still have left.

This event is presented by the University of Adelaide Palaeontologists.