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Regarding the demise of the Megafauna, sometime ago I saw a documentary called "Death of the Megafauna" (it's on DVD, your local library may have a copy). Up to then the commonly held belief was that the Megafauna (marsupial lion, giant kangaroo etc etc) were wiped out due to the arrival of the aborigines to Australia and were hunted to extinction. Someone eventually crunched some numbers and came to the conclusion that it didn't add up.
Archaeologists started seeing signs of heavy burning at the same stratified levels as the animal bones and eventually came to the conclusion that they disappeared due to the aboriginals habit of burning off the land which changed the climate of the country. Prior to their arrival it appears the country had far more greenery and dense growth, but constant, uncontrolled burning slowly killed off many plant species and only those that could survive burning were left.
It makes sense to me.
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