page_title: Quaternary extinction event
section_title: Afrotropic and Indomalaya: Africa and southern Asia
hierarchical_section_title: Quaternary extinction event / Extinctions by biogeographic realm / Afrotropic and Indomalaya: Africa and southern Asia
caption_attribution_description: English: Tapirus augustus - giant tapir from Pleistocene of South China Русский: Tapirus augustus - гигантский тапир из плейстоцена Южного Китая
context_page_description: The Quaternary period saw the extinctions of numerous predominantly megafaunal species, which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity and the extinction of key ecological strata across the globe. The most prominent event in the Late Pleistocene is differentiated from previous Quaternary pulse extinctions by the widespread absence of ecological succession to replace these extinct species, and the regime shift of previously established faunal relationships and habitats as a consequence.
  The earliest casualties were incurred at 130,000 BCE. However, the great majority of extinctions in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas occurred during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch. This extinction wave did not stop at the end of the Pleistocene, continuing, especially on isolated islands, in human-caused extinctions, although there is debate as to whether these should be considered separate events or part of the same event.
  Among the main causes hypothesized by paleontologists are overkill by the widespread appearance of humans and natural climate change.
context_section_description: The Afrotropic and Indomalaya biogeographic realms, or Old World tropics, were relatively spared by the Late Pleistocene extinctions. Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia are the only regions that have terrestrial mammals weighing over 1000 kg today. However, there are indications of megafaunal extinction events throughout the Pleistocene, particularly in Africa two million years ago, which coincide with key stages of human evolution and climatic trends. The center of human evolution and expansion, Africa and Asia were inhabited by advanced hominids by 2mya, with Homo habilis in Africa, and Homo erectus on both continents. By the advent and proliferation of Homo sapiens circa 315,000 BCE, dominant species included Homo heidelbergensis in Africa, the denisovans and neanderthals (fellow H. heidelbergensis descendants) in Eurasia, and Homo erectus in Eastern Asia. Ultimately, on both continents, these groups and other populations of Homo were subsumed by successive radiations of H. sapiens. There is evidence of an early migration event 268,000 BCE and later within neanderthal genetics, however the earliest dating for H. sapiens inhabitation is 118,000 BCE in Arabia, China and Israel, and 71,000 BCE in Indonesia. Additionally, not only have these early Asian migrations left a genetic mark on modern Papuan populations, the oldest known pottery in existence was found in China, dated to 18,000 BCE.  Particularly during the late Pleistocene, megafaunal diversity was notably reduced from both these continents, often without being replaced by comparable successor fauna. Climate change has been explored as a prominent cause of extinctions in Southeast Asia.
caption: Giant tapir (Tapirus augustus) restoration
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS4 (11.0x20071101 [20071101.m.190 2007/11/01:02:00:00 cutoff; m branch])  Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:02:18 22:34:23", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "374", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4122", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5952", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3528"}