The first Australians ate giant eggs of huge flightless birds

First they cooked them and then they enjoyed eating them.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
27 May 2022 Friday 06:33
9 Reads
The first Australians ate giant eggs of huge flightless birds

First they cooked them and then they enjoyed eating them. Around 50,000 years ago, humans on the Australian mainland consumed the large eggs of a two-meter-tall bird known as the 'thunder bird', analyzes of shells found by archaeologists have revealed.

Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Turin explain in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the remains of the shell fragments had burn marks. Their work has even allowed the animal, which became extinct about 47,000 years ago, to be placed on the evolutionary tree.

To do this, they compared the protein sequences of fossil eggs with the encoded genomes of living bird species. "The shells are made of mineral crystals that can hermetically trap some proteins, preserving this biological data in the harshest environments, even for millions of years," explains Professor Matthew Collins, lead author of the study.

The results obtained led the experts to identify that the eggs came from Genyornis newton, a huge non-flying bird (it could measure 2.5 meters and weigh up to 240 kilos) with tiny wings and huge legs that roamed prehistoric Australia, possibly in flocks.

Fossil records show that this species laid melon-sized eggs weighing around 1.5kg. It was among the Australian "megafauna" that disappeared a few thousand years after the arrival of humans, suggesting that people played a crucial role in its extinction.

The earliest date that has been given for the arrival of humans in Australia is around 65,000 years ago. And these studied eggshells date to between 50,000 and 55,000 years ago, not long before Genyornis went extinct and a time when humans had already spread across most of the continent.

“There is no evidence of meat consumption by Genyornis in the archaeological record. However, eggshell fragments with unique burning patterns consistent with human activity have been found in different locations on the continent,” says Professor Gifford Millar, co-author of the study.

“This implies that early humans did not necessarily hunt these huge birds, but instead routinely raided their nests and stole the giant eggs for food. Overharvesting of the eggs by humans could well have contributed to the extinction of Genyornis," he adds.

Although they never ruled out this species, some scientists argued that due to the shape and thickness of the shell, the most likely candidate was the Progura or Leipoa gallinacea, another extinct bird, much smaller, weighing between 5 and 7 kilograms and it was similar to a large turkey.

"Progura was related to today's megapods (galliformes), a group that includes ground-feeding birds such as chickens and turkeys," said Professor Beatrice Demarchi of the University of Turin. "But we discovered that the species responsible for the mysterious eggs arose before the galliform lineage, which allows us to rule out Procura's hypothesis and opt for Genyornis," she says.

Because the genetic material in the eggs had not survived long enough in the hot Australian climate, the researchers turned to a relatively new technique to extract a different type of "biomolecule": protein. Although it is not as rich in hereditary data, it allows a comparison to be made with those of living species.

The eggshell tested came from the Wood Point archaeological site in South Australia, but archaeologists have shown that similar shell fragments can be found at hundreds of sites on the western edge of the Ningaloo Coast, a fringe of reef coral located off the Australian west coast.

Specialists point out that the exploitation of Genyornis eggs by the first humans on the continent is similar to what happened with ostrich eggs, whose shells have been unearthed in archaeological sites in Africa dating back at least 100,000 years.