U.S.-Australia Joint Seminar: Quaternary Extinctions / Sydney, Australia / August 1988

该奖项将用于资助一个名为“第四纪灭绝”的研讨会。芝加哥大学的Richard G. Klein，澳大利亚悉尼大学的Richard Wright和新西兰奥塔哥大学的Atholl J. Anderson。来自美国的12名参与者将于1988年8月6日至11日在悉尼大学与来自澳大利亚的12名科学家和来自新西兰的3名科学家一起进行研究。研讨会的目的是了解为什么在更新世末期，澳大利亚和美洲都发生了大规模的动物灭绝。与会者将讨论：(1)由地貌或其他代用证据，特别是放射性碳定年法揭示的物种灭绝年表；(2)从考古学、古生物学、地球化学和地貌学等方面证明物种灭绝与气候变化或人类史前重要事件（包括人类首次出现在美洲和澳大利亚）之间的巧合。史前晚期席卷太平洋的一波鸟类灭绝潮为更新世晚期的灭绝事件提供了一个有趣的潜在类比，新西兰的参与者将特别关注其相关性。这次美国-澳大利亚-新西兰联合研讨会将首次对美国和澳大利亚的物种灭绝事件进行深入比较。迄今为止，研究这一问题的美国和澳大利亚/新西兰学者在很大程度上是相互孤立的。对于更新世末期大量动物物种的灭绝主要是由于人类活动还是气候变化，区域间的比较无疑将提供新的见解。

This award will support a seminar, "Quaternary Extinctions," organized jointly by Drs. Richard G. Klein of the University of Chicago, Richard Wright of the University of Sydney, Australia and Atholl J. Anderson of the University of Otago, New Zealand. Twelve participants from the U.S. will join 12 scientists from Australia and three from New Zealand between 6 and 11 August 1988 at the University of Sydney. The purpose of the seminar is to understand why massive faunal extinctions occurred in both Australia and the Americas near the end of the Pleistocene. Participants will discuss: (1) the chronology of extinctions, as revealed by geomorphic or other proxy evidence and especially by radiocarbon dating; and (2) the archeological, paleobiological, geochemical, and geomorphic evidence for a coincidence between extinctions and climatic change or between extinctions and important events in human prehistory, including the first appearance of people in the Americas and Australia. A wave of bird extinctions that swept the Pacific in late prehistoric times provides an interesting potential analog for the late Pleistocene extinction events, and its pertinence will be addressed particularly by New Zealand participants. This joint U.S.-Australia-New Zealand seminar will enable the first in-depth comparison between the American and Australian extinction events. To date, American and Australian/New Zealand scholars working on this question have, for the most part, worked in isolation from one another. Interregional comparisons will undoubtedly provide new insights as to whether the extinction of large numbers of animal species near the end of the Pleistocene resulted primarily from human activity or from climatic change.