Editing Elephant bird (section)

== Extinction ==
It is widely believed that the extinction of elephant birds was a result of human activity. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of [[Madagascar]].<ref name="Hawkins">Hawkins, A. F. A. & Goodman, S. M. (2003)</ref> The late Holocene also witnessed the extinction of other Malagasy animals, including several species of [[Malagasy hippopotamus]], two species of giant tortoise (''[[Aldabrachelys abrupta]]'' and ''[[Aldabrachelys grandidieri]]''),  the [[giant fossa]], over a dozen species of [[giant lemurs]], the aardvark-like animal ''[[Plesiorycteropus]],'' and the crocodile ''[[Voay]]''.''<ref name=":6" />'' Several elephant bird bones with incisions have been dated to approximately 10,000 BCE which some authors suggest are cut marks, which have been proposed as evidence of a long history of coexistence between elephant birds and humans;<ref name="Hansford2018">{{cite journal |last1=Hansford |first1=J. |last2=Wright |first2=P. C. |last3=Rasoamiaramanana |first3=A. |last4=Pérez |first4=V. R. |last5=Godfrey |first5=L. R. |last6=Errickson |first6=D. |last7=Thompson |first7=T. |last8=Turvey |first8=S. T. |year=2018 |title=Early Holocene human presence in Madagascar evidenced by exploitation of avian megafauna |url=http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10052571/35/Hansford_eaat6925.full.pdf |journal=Science Advances |volume=4 |issue=9 |pages=eaat6925 |bibcode=2018SciA....4.6925H |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aat6925 |pmc=6135541 |pmid=30214938}}</ref> however, these conclusions conflict with more commonly accepted evidence of a much shorter history of human presence on the island and remain controversial. The oldest securely dated evidence for humans on Madagascar dates to the mid-first millennium AD.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=Peter |date=2020-10-01 |title=Settling Madagascar: When Did People First Colonize the World's Largest Island? |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15564894.2019.1582567 |journal=The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology |language=en |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=576–595 |doi=10.1080/15564894.2019.1582567 |issn=1556-4894 |s2cid=195555955|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

A 2021 study suggested that elephant birds, along with the Malagasy hippopotamus species, became extinct in the interval 800–1050 CE (1150–900 years [[Before Present]]), based on the timing of the latest radiocarbon dates. The timing of the youngest radiocarbon dates co-incided with major environmental alteration across Madagascar by humans changing forest into grassland, probably for cattle [[pastoralism]], with the environmental change likely being induced by the use of fire. This reduction of forested area may have had cascade effects, like making elephant birds more likely to be encountered by hunters,<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Hansford |first1=James P. |last2=Lister |first2=Adrian M. |last3=Weston |first3=Eleanor M. |last4=Turvey |first4=Samuel T. |date=July 2021 |title=Simultaneous extinction of Madagascar's megaherbivores correlates with late Holocene human-caused landscape transformation |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0277379121002031 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |language=en |volume=263 |pages=106996 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106996|bibcode=2021QSRv..26306996H |s2cid=236313083 }}</ref> though there is little evidence of human hunting of elephant birds. Humans may have utilized elephant bird eggs. Introduced diseases ([[Late Pleistocene extinctions#Disease|hyperdisease]]) have been proposed as a cause of extinction, but the plausibility for this is weakened due to the evidence of centuries of overlap between humans and elephant birds on Madagascar.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last1=Clarke |first1=Simon J. |last2=Miller |first2=Gifford H. |last3=Fogel |first3=Marilyn L. |last4=Chivas |first4=Allan R. |last5=Murray-Wallace |first5=Colin V. |date=September 2006 |title=The amino acid and stable isotope biogeochemistry of elephant bird (Aepyornis) eggshells from southern Madagascar |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0277379106000758 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |language=en |volume=25 |issue=17–18 |pages=2343–2356 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.02.001|bibcode=2006QSRv...25.2343C |url-access=subscription }}</ref>