Scientists Explored Island Cave, Found 1 Million-Year-Old Remnants a Lost World

"A spectacular trove of fossils discovered in a cave on New Zealand's North Island has given scientists their first glimpse of ancient forest species that lived there more than a million years ago," reports Popular Mechanics: The fossils represent 12 ancient bird species and four frog species, including several previously unknown bird species. Taken together, the fossils paint a picture of an ancient world that looks drastically different than it does today. The discovery also fills in an important gap in scientific understanding of the patterns of extinction that preceded human arrival in New Zealand 750 years ago. The team published a study on the find in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.
Trevor Worthy, lead study author and associate professor at Flinders University, said in a statement that "This remarkable find suggests our ancient forests were once home to a diverse group of birds that did not survive the next million years...

"For decades, the extinction of New Zealand's birds was viewed primarily through the lens of human arrival 750 years ago. This study proves that natural forces like super-volcanoes and dramatic climate shifts were already sculpting the unique identity of our wildlife over a million years ago."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for sharing the article.

Re:

[Zero__Kelvin]

Nobody ever claimed that humans are responsible for the extinction of all species, just as nobody who isn't an idiot ever claimed that they have never been responsible, at least in large part, for the extinction of any of them.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

All of NZ and Australia's megafauna went extinct once humans arrived. In terms of "before humans arrived", over a million-year time scale it's guaranteed that some things will go extinct, particularly in a country subject to apocalyptic volcanic eruptions OTOH the extinction of the megafauna directly coincided with the arrival of humans.

Fascinating

[hadleyburg]

New Zealand has an interesting history being a place which was only relatively recently populated by humans. The article has the Maori arriving there 750 years ago, which is very recent compared to, for example, the indigenous Australian people who were in Australia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago.

The whole pacific migration of people through the South Pacific (and eventually to New Zealand) is interesting - it demonstrates very impressive seafaring skills for a start.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

There maps you can find of reconstructed Polynesian migration routes. It's pretty cool.
They've been advanced seafarers since BCE, but they became really impressive seafarers around the 8th centure CE, hopping between islands many thousands of kilometers apart.
What's very interesting is there's a near 1000 year gap from their arrival in Samoa to their exploration of the far eastern reaches of the Central Pacific.
I imagine some kind of technological or cultural shift must have happened in their seafaring a