In 1877, Richard Owen suggested that the great Pleistocene fossil mammals of Australia had been driven to extinction by "the hostile agency of man". Seven years later, C. S. Wilkinson replied that a reduction in rainfall, leading to the impoverishment of a once rich flora, was a more likely trigger for the loss of these beasts. And so it has always been in the study of late Quaternary extinctions: arguments for anthropogenic causes are countered by arguments in favour of climate change.
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机译：1877年，理查德·欧文（Richard Owen）提出，澳大利亚的大型更新世化石哺乳动物已被“人类的敌对行动”灭绝。七年后，威尔金森（C. S. Wilkinson）回答说，降雨量减少导致曾经丰富的植物种群陷入贫困，这很可能是这些野兽损失的诱因。因此，在第四纪晚期灭绝研究中也一直如此：人为原因的论据被支持气候变化的论据所反驳。
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