Seafaring and the Conquest of Australian Ecosystems
By: Anonymous
Homo sapiens began seafaring about 45,000 years ago in the Indonesian archipelago (Harari, 2015). When exactly these seafaring H. sapiens reached Australia is still debated, but the general consensus is that it was about 45,000 years ago as well (Harari, 2015; O’Connell & Allen, 2012).
The Indonesian archipelago had the stocks to make boats (such as bamboo, a possible resource that was used) to allow H. sapiens to go to Australia. Once there, they either already had weapons and the tools to make fire or got them in Australia. Thus, stones, flint, and other supplies were available as stocks (Harari, 2015). The animals present in the landscape were also stocks, as they served as a food source (among other roles) (Harari, 2015).
H. sapiens are main actors in the system. They utilize stocks in the environment (bamboo, stones, animals) to expand/cement their roles (seafarer, hunter, gatherer, etc.) in their local ecosystems (Harari, 2015). With no modern governmental structures to impose mandates on early humans, there is little anthropogenic governance of H. sapiens and their environment. Humans were limited by the limitations of the environment itself.
Demographic trends likely had an influence, as a lack of resources in the Indonesian archipelago may have induced people to consider seafaring. Population growth in Australia may have also informed decision making about which animals to hunt, how often, and what other land-use tactics should be employed to help the population. Climate patterns could have also influenced this interaction, as Thiel (1987) alleged that sea level rise motivated H. sapiens on islands to pursue sea travel faster, hastening their trip to Australia. Harari (2015) also mentions that climate changes may have negatively impacted megafauna populations.
45,000 years ago, H. sapiens traveled beyond the Indonesian archipelago and ultimately conquered the Australian ecosystem (Harari, 2015). They may have been motivated by climate change or a lack of resources on their islands due to population size (Thiel, 1987). In Australia, the animals had no innate caution of them, and thus humans were able to easily hunt the majority (23 out of 24 species of animals over 100 pounds) to extinction (Harari, 2015). Fire was also used in hunting, and further contributed to declining animal populations and changed the landscape (as it caused the later dominance of Eucalyptus trees in Australia, among other things) (Harari, 2015). This habitat loss likely accelerated the collapse of Australian ecology. These extinctions likely also hurt human populations when the demand for food exceeded the supply, but this interaction likely shifted with animal and human population dynamics.
In the model, the interactions show a constant ebb and flow in the stocks related to the supplies for weapons/tools and the tools themselves. For example, more bamboo allows for more boats to be made, but making more boats uses up more bamboo. With less bamboo available, fewer boats can be made, and so forth. Additionally, there is an ongoing loop between the H. sapiens population, the Australian habitat, and the Australian megafauna population. In this loop, it’s clear to see that as the H. sapiens population increases, it takes a toll on the habitat and the megafauna population. However, when the human population is low, the effects on the habitat and the megafauna population are less severe, and these rebound a bit. This makes sense because larger human populations would likely degrade the environment more in search of supplies and food, and they would also need to kill more megafauna in order to support themselves. However, this puts an unsustainable pressure on the habitat and megafauna populations, and thus declines in these populations likely led to resource scarcity. This in turn resulted in declines in the H. sapiens populations until the environment sufficiently recovered.
References
Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind (First U.S. edition). Harper
O’Connell, James. F., & Allen, J. (2012). Forum the restaurant at the end of the universe: Modelling the colonization of sahul. Australian Archaeology, 74(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2012.11681932
Thiel, B. (1987). Early settlement of the Philippines, eastern Indonesia, and Australia-new guinea: A new hypothesis. Current Anthropology, 28(2), 236–241. https://doi.org/10.1086/203525
Full Loopy Link:
Where Humans Go, Destruction Follows
By: Cassidy Bittenbender
As humans began to colonize new places, they expanded their knowledge and pushed past their boundaries. They ventured into unknown territories and encountered a plethora of different flora and fauna along their way. Unfortunately, the beauty of these untouched lands and species, did not last after their arrival. Where the humans went, they often left a trail of victims in their path. There were two major mass extinction events that occurred during the time of the Cognitive Revolution in both Australia and America. Around 45,000 years ago, humans ventured to Australia which was home to creatures they’ve never seen like massive kangaroos, koalas, and birds, marsupial lions, and even diprotodons, which is a giant wombat. Within a few thousand years, nearly all these giants vanished and of the twenty-four Australian animal species weighing 100 pounds or more, twenty-three became extinct (Harari, 2014). This caused mayhem for the Australian ecosystem because it disrupted the food chains drastically.
Following this event, at around 16,000 years ago, humans arrived in America where they provoked a similar disaster. Again, as they inhabited new lands, they encountered new animals like mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth cats, giant ground sloths and so much more. Unfortunately, they upheld their reputation they got in Australia and once again caused a mass extinction that ravaged the land. Within 2,000 years of their arrival, most of these unique species were gone. Within that time, North America lost thirty-four out of its forty-seven genera of large mammals and South America lost fifty out of sixty. Furthermore, thousands of species of smaller mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, and parasites also became extinct (Harari, 2014).
While these mass extinctions could mostly be blamed on human actions, there are other factors that could have aided in these disasters. For example, climate change could have played a role in the mass extinctions but it hard to say for sure since most of the evidence points to humans. Overall, human colonization of these lands caused mass extinctions of both Australian and American megafauna from hunting the unique species and by changing the landscapes and ecology of the lands.
Reference:
Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.
Loopy: https://bit.ly/3jAXik3
Creative Thought
By: Sean Malloy
Around 70,000 years ago the first of the genus Homo Sapiens stumbled upon a very unique and beneficial mutation. For the most part belief is that the mutation was simply random and that any of the species in the genus Homo walking Earth at the time could’ve acquired it, but Sapiens did. This is the ability to think of fictional thought ( Harari, Vandermeulen, Casanave, & Champion, 2020). This led to Homo Sapiens gaining the ability to form much larger groups because they could all believe in something they wanted to achieve. These large populations and creative thinking led to efficient hunting, so now large tribes could easily be provided for. On the social side humans could now band in large groups discussing ideas. This is they type of thinking that led to religion. As Homo Sapien populations grew they began depleting the resources in their regions, so migration occurred. This led to eventual contact with the other species in the genus Homo. Whether it was war, intermingling, or stripping the area of megafauna Homo Sapiens quickly became the only species left on Earth. The ability of fictional thought really marks the beginning of the cognitive revolution because we see the first recorded history and the rise of Homo Sapiens Harari et al. (2020).
Harari, Y. N., Vandermeulen, D., Casanave, D., & Champion, C. (2020). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Albin Michel.
The Effect of Fire Usage on Human Evolution
By: Angie Choi
This event has happened as early as 800,00 years ago and around 300,000 years ago. Neanderthals were using fire for everyday use. The natural resource that has been used are coal, fire, food like nuts, berries, wheat, rice, and potatoes. They use the fire as a source of light, heat, to protect themselves from lion and to cook food. The humans were able to possibly socialize around the campfire. The hominids were able to share their fire technology which helps people in the colder area to keep warm. There was evidence of a term ‘fire-stick farming”, where it has been used for cleaning the land for human habitats use, making traveling easy, killing bugs or vermin and warfare among tribes (Service, 2019). As the humans spread with the knowledge of the use of fire, climate change has happened where mammoths and a lot of other animals have gone extinct. This has also led to the fact of fuel buildup which cause the extinction and the risk to human (Pausas & Keeley, 2009). The interaction of human- environment with fire is that there are a lot of uses but some of the uses can cause harm to them or the climate around them. The outcomes of this are that there are more possible harm to the environment and self that can happen like if the fire is used to cook then the gas that comes out of it can cause pollution.
Link to Loopy: Angie Choi’s loopy
Reference:
Pausas, J. G., & Keeley, J. E. (2009). A Burning Story: The Role of Fire in the History of Life. BioScience, 59(7), 593–601. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.7.10
Service, T. A. (2019, February 21). Influence of Fire on Human Evolution. TAS. https://www.theadventureservice.com/post/influence-of-fire-on-human-evolution
The Extinction of Large Australian Terrestrial Species
By: Tessa Shelton
About 45,000 year ago, Sapiens crossed the sea and entered into the continent of Australia. Before Sapiens reached Australia, the ecosystem was able to evolve and develop in isolation. There were dense thickets of forest, grasslands, and a multitude of animal species including 24 animal species that weighed over 100 pounds. Specifically, these stocks included a diverse collection of native vegetation, “a 450-pound, six- foot kangaroo, a marsupial lion, as massive as a modern tiger, koalas far too big to be cuddly and cute, flightless birds twice the size of ostriches, and the giant diprotodon (a two-and-a-half-ton wombat)” (Harari, 2015). There was no government in this primal Australia, just the natural cycle of life. This meant that the strongest animal would be at the top of the food chain, at least until Sapiens came along. Sapiens changed the natural order of the Australian ecosystem through a few different actions. First, Sapiens didn’t evolve along with the large animal species therefore the animals were not threatened by the seemingly weak predators. Sapiens used this to their advantage and easily took down the animals with their hunting tools. These large unsuspecting species reproduced at a slow rate and the number of offspring were few per pregnancy. Using diprotodon as an example, “if humans cut down even one diprotodon every few months, it would be enough to cause diprotodon deaths to outnumber births”(Hararj, 2015)). Another way Sapiens changed the ecosystem was through fire agriculture. By using fire to clear away thickets of dense forest, Sapiens changed the landscape to fit their needs while also making way for more resilient flora that could survive this technique. Ultimately this affected the animals that lived in this environment by altering their habitat, either exposing them to humans or creating a new food source. The third source of change that happened around the same time is climate change. The earth would have been in the midst of an ice age around 45,000 years ago. This would have put the large Australian animals in a vulnerable place, allowing for humans’ actions to have a greater impact. Ultimately, this combination of human hunting, habitat manipulation, and climate change led 23 out of the 24 large animal species living in Australia to go extinct and for humans to multiply across the continent (Harari, 2015)
References
Harari, Y. N. (2018). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper Perennial.