‘Bush fire, catastrophe might have led to extinction’

Vadodara: Human overhunting and climate change are globally seen as the two possible reasons behind the extinction of megafaunals during the late quaternary period.
This topic is well-studied in the US, Europe and Australia but remains unexplored in the Indian context. “We have very little knowledge about the late quaternary megafaunal extinctions in India,” said Devara Anilkumar, assistant professor at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at MSU.
“During our excavations at Motravulapadu village, we unearthed important animal fossil remains that are 50,000 to 60,000 years old.We also found evidence of veld fires known as grassland or bush fires that had happened 40,000 years ago,” he said, adding that termite mounds and soil patches were burnt during these fires and preserved. The evidence of bush fire also indicates that there could be a local or regional catastrophic event that would have led to the extinction of the animal population. “This provides a new dimension to the existing debate on whether human overhunting and climate change led to the extinction of megafauna from India,” he said.
Along with Devara, assistant professor Dr Vrushab Mahesh and retired professor P Ajithprasad from MSU, Dr Prabhin Sukumaran, assistant professor at Dr K C Patel Research and Development Centre, Changa, Anand were part of the project that also had experts from the union ministry of culture, CSIR-NGRI Hyderabad, Australia-based Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) at the Southern Cross University, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and Harvard University.