The oldest human remains found yet...

So I know I said on my last blog that I was going to focus on the changing climate in Australia in the late Pleistocene, but this is just a quick entry about the oldest human remains found in Australia to date.

Thorne et al (1999) carried out a comprehensive ESR and U series dating study on a skeleton found at the Lake Mungo. The estimate of its age is 60,000-62,000 years old! This means there were humans in Australia for much longer than first imagined. This strengthens the climate change hypothesis because it shows that human and animals co-existed for a very long time, so if they co-existed for so long then why would the Late Pleistocene see the sudden demise of megafaunal species? Something else must have been the cause...and I'm betting it was the climate!

Figure 1: A picture of the human remains, he looks like he is hiding his modesty!

I promise my next blog entry will be on the climate in Australia in the Late Pleistocene!