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LitCharts | September 27 2024
Before the Cognitive Revolution, all species of humans lived in the Afro-Asian landmass. Other land masses, like Australia and Madagascar were completely isolated ecosystems. After the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens learned how to build boats, and they began exploring farther into the planet’s ecosystems—initially from East Asia to Australia. Harari argues that the moment Sapiens set foot on Australia, they jumped to the top of the food chain and “became the deadliest species ever in the four-billion-year history of life on Earth.” Within a few thousand years, many of Australia’s marsupial species (like giant koalas and marsupial lions) were extinct
Some scholars blame marsupial extinctions on climate change (like ice ages), but Harari thinks Sapiens are responsible, because archaeological evidence suggests ancient marsupials survived many ice ages. In addition, sea life—where Sapiens couldn’t dwell—saw hardly any extinctions in the time period when Sapiens began exploring Australia. In addition, mass extinctions around the globe typically coincide with Sapiens’ arrival on those land masses. New Zealand’s wildlife weathered 45,000 years of climate change, but 60 percent of the birds went extinct after Sapiens first arrived there about 800 years ago. Harari contends that “the historical record makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.” The large island of Madagascar, about 400 kilometres east of the African mainland, offers a famous example. These included the elephant bird, a flightless creature three metres tall and weighing almost half a ton – the largest bird in the world – and the giant lemurs, the globe’s largest primates. The elephant birds and the giant lemurs, along with most of the other large animals of Madagascar.
Some scholars suggest that the mass extinctions happened because Australia’s giant marsupials had no prior exposure to humans and didn’t realize they were a threat (unlike large mammals in Afro-Asia, who’d lived with Sapiens for two million years). Others argue that humans’ use of fire to clear land radically altered Australia’s ecosystem and rendered many species extinct. Some think that climate change did alter Australia’s ecosystem around 45,000 years ago, but it wasn’t able to regain balance with Sapiens in the ecosystem as well.
Harari concludes that early Sapiens’ global colonization—or the “First Wave Extinction”—was a colossal ecological disaster. Large mammals were most affected, and the only ecosystems spared were those that remained uncolonized until relatively recently, like the Galapagos islands. The “Second Wave extinction” followed with the advent of farming, and modern humans are part of the “Third Wave Extinction” today. Harari thinks the last remaining large mammals on Earth—which are mostly in the oceans—will be next to go, and it saddens him that only humans (and our farmyard animals) might be the only large creatures left on Earth as the "human flood" continues.
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