until 1933 that the first excavations took place at Cuddie Springs. Led by the Australian Museum, the principal researchers described the excavation thus: We commenced our excavations about 10 yards from the well, working towards the centre, and before work was stopped, about five weeks later, the claypan resembled the fields of Flanders, with a complicated series of trenches and pits, mostly about 5 feet in depth, but in one case about 15 feet. Though a range of paleontological material was recovered from the site, no archaeological material was identified in the 1933 excavation. Full scale excavations at the site recommenced in 1991 after excavations designed to test the possibility of pollen preservation at the site uncovered a high concentration of bone and a dense layer of flaked stone artefacts, indicating the site had archaeological as well as paleontological potential. The main archaeological excavations were carried out between 1996 and 2009. The majority of the excavated material is currently stored at the Australian Museum, and has featured in major exhibitions. Site setting Cuddie Springs is located within the semi-arid zone, but palynological evidence indicates that 40,000 years ago there was a large permanent lake surrounded by open shrub land suitable for supporting megafauna. Evidence for human co-existence with Australian megafauna The excavators of Cuddie Springs reject humans as the primary cause of megafauna extinctions. They conclude that the 10,000 years of co-habitation of humans and megafauna at Cuddie Springs suggests that climate changes that began before the human colonisation of Australia were responsible for the megafauna extinctions. Wroe and Field cite the staggered extinctions that have been occurring since at least 130,000 years ago and the fact that megafauna in Tasmania do not occur after 46,000 years ago but people only arrived across a land bridge at 37,000 years ago. This staggered decline, mostly occurring in contexts independent of humans, is linked to environmental evidence for increasingly arid and erratic conditions since 400–300,000 years ago. The large body size of the megafauna suggests low fecundity and low population densities which have been argued to have made them susceptible to extinction due to habitat loss from increasing aridity. The 10,000 years of co-habitation of humans and megafauna at Cuddie Springs that is the foundation of Wroe and Field's argument has been the subject of intense critical examination. This critique has identified a number of details that weaken the integrity of the