Human population growth likely spurred the extinction of Madagascar’s elephant birds.
Two thousand years ago, lemurs the size of humans and giant “elephant birds” roamed Madagascar. A thousand years later, they were nearly gone. This mass extinction coincided with a boom in Madagascar’s human population, according to a new study, when two small groups of people linked up and took over the island.
Between 2007 and 2014 the team traveled to 257 villages around the island. They collected saliva samples and musical, linguistic, and other social science data. In 2017, the researchers concluded the modern Malagasy population is most closely related to Bantu-speaking people of eastern Africa and the Austronesian-speaking people of southern Borneo, in southeast Asia.
They found the modern Malagasy population is descended from a small ancestral Asian population made up of only a few thousand people that stopped mixing with other groups about 2000 years ago.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
House Republicans release 1,000-page report alleging politicization in the FBI, DOJHouse Judiciary Committee Republicans have released a 1,000-page report detailing allegations of FBI and Justice Department misconduct.
Read more »
House Judiciary Republicans to release 1,000-page road map for Biden FBI probeThe report will serve as the basis for one of Republicans' top oversight investigations if they take the majority.
Read more »
California firm buys almost 1,000 apartments in D-FWAlmost 1,000 Dallas-Fort Worth apartments have been sold to a California firm.
Read more »