A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar

The hands and feet of Archaeolemur: metrical affinities and their functional significance

“…It is perhaps not surprising that, in the aftermath of the advent of humans to Madagascar only ca. 2000 years ago, Archaeolemur was one of the latest surviving subfossil lemurs (Burney et al, 2004).…”

Fore limb bones of late Pleistocene dwarf hippopotamuses (Mammalia, Cetartiodactyla) from Madagascar previously determined as belonging to the crocodylid Voay Brochu, 2007

“…The extinction of the dwarf island forms was probably caused by late Pleistocene climatic changes and its aftermaths and by human influences in the late Holocene (Dewar 1984;Burney et al 2004). A cypriote locality discovered in 1980 at the Akrotiri peninsula, for example, revealed over 200,000 accumulated bones and bone fragments of the pygmy hippopotamus Phanourios minutus and the pygmy elephant Elephas cypriotes (Hadjisterkotis & Reese 2008).…”

The late Pleistocene horned crocodileVoay robustus(Grandidier & Vaillant, 1872) from Madagascar in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

“…Little is published on the fossil fauna from these sites, except for findings of birds (Goodman & Ravoavy 1993) and crocodiles (Grandidier 1872;Grandidier & Vaillant 1872;Mook 1921): From what is preserved in a few localities, Voay robustus seemed to have been a common resident in Madagascar (Brochu, 2000;Burney et al 2004). On the contrary, so far Crocodylus niloticus had not been found in deposits dated to a period before the settlement of humans in Madagascar (Brochu 2007).…”

“…In Early and Middle Pleistocene times, the central highlands of Madagascar were dominated by trees, shrubs and forbs (Burney et al 2004). Then, in the late Pleistocene, changes in climate and vegetation took place and successively led to a transformation of the entire environment (Burney et al 2004). However, once Voay was extinct, the Nile crocodile, which is a more flexible generalist, would have been able to establish a stable population in Madagascar.…”