How Ancient Art Captured Australian Megafauna

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Beneath layers of rock art are drawings of animals SO strange that, for a long time, some anthropologists thought they could only have been imagined. But what if these animals really had existed, after all?

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[blueberrylane]

Sometimes i think about the fact we will never discover fossils of 99.9% of everything that ever lived here on earth. It is both heady and humbling.

[cintronproductions]

Bone-crushing marsupial lions, rhino-sized wombats, giant walking kangaroos, massive Komodo dragons and demon ducks of doom, man, Australia back then was even crazier and scarier than today. XD

[jka]

And sadly, some 46, 000 thousand year old Aboriginal rock art was recently blown up to make way for a mine for Rio Tinto :( Thank you also for acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands you discuss.

[redfern]

A great combination of Australia's beautiful indigenous art and some very interesting paleontology. Really enjoyed this; thanks.

[fullerdb]

"The soil can dissolve bones."
Australia keeps killing you even after you are dead. 😲

[TragoudistrosMPH]

9:24 Taking a moment to thank the descendants of the first people was a great gesture. Making people aware of their *names* was steps further than most ever consider.
Eons is great!

[MaskedNozza]

I liked seeing that message at the end paying respects to all the indigenous peoples of Australia. I'm not indigenous but not enough media outlets pay their respects. Well done, guys 👍

[davidhanson]

You think Australia is tough now, you should've been there when it was in Beta.

[MST]

Interesting side note concerning the pictograph panels: Many of these sites functioned as classrooms for many generations, hence the obscuring/overlapping of newer drawings atop older ones.

[MuertaRara]

Finally a video about the Australian Megafauna! Please cover more, this topic is so interesting but so often overlooked

[Rukai]

The best thing about this video, aside the interesting fossils as always, is your recognition of the diversity among the tribes of Indigenous Australians occupying the land.

Thank you

[michaelhenshaw-vetmedengli]

While genomics is critical to the study of evolution, I'm really happy to see this episode utilizing art as another line of evidence. Nicely done!

[seleukiasoter]

Where/who does the music for this? Occasionally i accidentally hear something that gives me the bloody chills and id like to hear more

[ecurewitz]

If you thought everything in Australia can kill you now, just think of the continent 50, 000 years ago

[bethwelsh]

Ahhh I was going to ask about the evidence found within the oral tradition but you answered my question about 1/2 through! It's amazing how the triangulation of art, science, and storytelling have come together to better complete the history of these unique animals of Australia. Thanks for another great episode.

[grumpyaustralian]

Now I know it was stated that we dont know if the first people of Arnhem land encountered diprotodon due to their distribution but, it is probably still worth mentioning that there is some Diprotodon fossils with distinct butchering marks that have been found outside of arnhem land, which suggests that atleast some of the people that moved on from the northern parts of australia 40-65 thousand years ago did infact encounter and even eat atleast some diprotodons.
I understand that it isn't (necessarily) art or arnhemland related and therefore was skipped over but, it seems important to mention when talking about ancient aboriginal interactions with megafauna like diprotodon as archeoligical evidence suggests we migrated across the entire nation very quickly after settling in arnhem land, Anceint aboriginal peoples likely encountered all of the megafauna that lived in australia collectively and did infact create ancient artwork in the form of paintings and carvings depicting alot of the fauna the individual groups encountered in sacred places and caves across the entire continent, and thus could have been tied in in to the video.

That said I do understand that 10 minute video's do far better on youtube and you guys have covered alot of information here, love the channel and the amount of effort/research you put in to every one of these video's.

[lilyannrose]

Really appreciated the message at the end about how this archaeological evidence is often sourced, even today there’s not enough respect for the traditional land owners or land preservation

Edit: grammar

[Nicksloan]

Thank you for the land acknowledgement at the end!

[arjunvadrevu]

I said this in the last video and I’ll say it again. Thank you for acknowledging and respecting not just the history, but the actual land of indigenous peoples. We have centuries of colonialism and destruction to undo, but being able to give back, and least in the annals of history, stolen land starts the process of deconstructing systems of European oppression. That one slide at the end hopefully starts a conversation amongst your viewers that to appreciate the history of the land, we have to first respect the history of the people who were there before us. Then we can begin to talk about much needed socio-economic reparations.

[Deftonesdsm]

I literally just binged all Eons videos other day. Im so addicted to this kind of knowledge