Late Holocene Spread of Pastoralism Coincides with Endemic Megafaunal Extinction on Madagascar

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recently expanded estimates for when humans arrived on Madagascar (up to ~10,000 years ago) are based on limited data yet highlight questions on the causes of the island’s relatively late megafaunal extinctions (~2000–500 years ago). Introduced domesticated animals could have contributed to extinctions through competition, but the arrival times and past diets of exotic animals are poorly known. Here, we use radiocarbon and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from introduced ungulates (cattle, ovicaprids, and bushpigs, n = 57) and endemic megafauna (pygmy hippopotamuses, giant tortoises, and elephant birds, n = 65) to test the potential for competition between livestock and endemic megafauna in southern and western Madagascar. Radiocarbon dates confirm that introduced and endemic herbivores briefly overlapped chronologically in this region between at least 1000 and 800 calendar years before present (cal BP). Moreover, stable isotope data suggest that ovicaprids, tortoises, and hippos had broadly similar diets and may have exploited similar habitats. These data support the potential for past direct and indirect forms of competition between introduced and endemic herbivores and add to the growing body of evidence that changes in human subsistence strategies and land use related to pastoralism contributed to the late megafaunal extinction on Madagascar.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33648