Pleistocene occupation of New Guinea's highland and subalpine environments

New Guinea's mountains provide an important case study for understanding early modern human environmental adaptability and early developments leading to agriculture. Evidence is presented showing that human colonization pre-dated 35ka (ka = thousands of uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present) and was accompanied by landscape modification using fire. Sorties into the subalpine zone may have occurred before the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM), and perhaps contributed to megafaunal extinction. Humans persisted in the intermontane valleys through the LGM and expanded rapidly into the subalpine on climatic warming, when burning and clearance may have retarded vegetation re-colonization. Plant food use dates from at least 31ka, confirming that some of New Guinea's distinctive agricultural practices date to the earliest millennia of human presence.

A late Pleistocene predator-accumulated avifauna from Kids Cave, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand

A fossil deposit excavated from the floor of Kids Cave, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, is interpreted as having been primarily accumulated by New Zealand falcon Falco novaeseelandiae, with some contribution by Haast's eagle Harpagornis moorei. The fauna is rich: 3699 bones represented 41 bird species, two frog species, unspecified geckoes and skinks, and one bat species. Fossil deposition was mainly within the Last Glacial Maximum from about 22,000 cal yr bp to about 15,000 cal yr bp, with a marked change in sediment characteristics at the onset of the LGM's coldest period. Chronological control is given by three Uranium-series dates for a speleothem and radiocarbon AMS dating of four avian eggshell samples and one bone. The fauna is the first extensive predator accumulation of LGM age described from the West Coast of the South Island, and it indicates a palaeoenvironment of a mosaic of shrublands with forest patches. The onset of the coldest part of the LGM (Aurora 3 glacial advance, 19,500 - 19,000 cal yrs bp) saw marked climate cooling/drying affecting the site, but the avifauna indicates that although open-country taxa became more common in this period, some forest persisted nearby throughout the remainder of the LGM.