Adventure Ausrama Blog

The time when women choose to have babies has changed through history. At the beginning of the 20th century, Doctors told women to wait until they were at least 24 to become pregnant, because it was known that giving births earlier resulted in "damaged" babies due to the lack of medical knowledge at the time.  Waiting too long, however, also resulted in fertility problems. Of course, much of this advice went by the wayside as lack of reliable contraception led to birthing at a younger age anyway. The Great Depression put a real "stymie" on women choosing to have children in their twenties. Lack of income reduced interest in sex and men told their wives to not fall pregnant. At least this is what we are told. War in the late 1930s saw all of this self-control fall away as couples fell pregnant with the view that one could be dead tomorrow. Even in 1942 a doctor said people were selfish and wanted creature comforts more than childr...

During the Middle-Late Pleistocene, one million to 10,000 years ago, more than 50 species of animal disappeared, the last to do so 46.4 thousand years from the present. The reason for the demise of the giant creatures is hotly debated. Some scientists claim that the spread of Man across the globe was the cause. This is suspect, however, because there were so few of them. Killing the odd animal would not have made a significant impact. Many believe that the end date for megafauna is incorrect. As stated above, the theory that humans killed them off by definition means that people and animals lived side-by-side for a considerable time. Evidence in Australia certainly points to this - 13 species of large animals were here on human arrival. Moreover, the people mainly relied on subsistence strategies for food. Their weapons were not very efficient. A boomerang is highly inaccurate and the range of a spear is limited. Megafauna died out over a long period of time, not all at a s...