Time never forgot the land

Modern civilization has extremely deleterious consequences in regards to species richness, primarily through destruction of habitat. Because of these negative aspects of modernity hunter-gatherers have been idealized as a model of humanity at equilibrium with their ecology. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus lays out the revisionist, and to some extent now mainstream, argument that the American wilderness which European settlers encountered was actually an instance of "re-wilding" in the wake of native demographic collapse due to disease. But setting this case aside, what about Australia? Its fauna was even more exotic to Eurasian sensibilities, and the Australian Aboriginals do not seem to have ever shifted away from obligate hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Perhaps they truly were at equilibrium with their environment, judging from the fact that Australia has so many endemic species. I think the argument that Australian Aboriginals were at some equilibrium is correct; but only because the ...