A new analysis of cuts in bone rethinks theory of how Australia’s First Peoples used large game

Some extinct mammals from Australia's Mammoth Cave included (from left) a giant long-nosed echidna, a short-faced kangaroo, a wombat-like marsupial and a Tasmanian thylacine. Peter Schouten

Recent analysis of two fossils from Australia, estimated to be about 50,000 years old, suggests that Australia’s First Peoples valued big animals for their fossils as well as for their meat, collecting bones and transporting them over great distances.

For decades, scientists viewed cut marks on the fossils as signs that Indigenous Australians hunted large prey — possibly to the point of extinction. When humans first arrived in Australia around 65,000 years ago, the continent was home to enormous animals that are now long gone, such as giant long-nosed echidnas, short-faced kangaroos that stood nearl