How early human foragers impacted insular forests is a topic with implications across multiple disciplines, including resource management. Paradoxically, terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene impacts of foraging communities have been characterized as both extreme—as in debates over human-driven faunal extinctions—and minimal compared to later landscape transformations by farmers and herders. We investigated how rainforest hunter-gatherers managed resources in montane New Guinea and present some of the earliest documentation of Late Pleistocene through mid-Holocene exploitation of cassowaries (Aves: Casuariidae). Worldwide, most insular ratites were extirpated by the Late Holocene, following human arrivals, including elephant birds of Madagascar (Aepyornithidae) and moa of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Dinornithiformes)—icons of anthropogenic island devastation. Cassowaries are exceptional, however, with populations persisting in New Guinea and Australia. Little is known of past human exploitation and what factors contributed to their survival. We present a method for inferring past human interaction with mega-avifauna via analysis of microstructural features of archaeological eggshell. We then contextualize cassowary hunting and egg harvesting by montane foragers and discuss the implications of human exploitation. Our data suggest cassowary egg harvesting may have been more common than the harvesting of adults. Furthermore, our analysis of cassowary eggshell microstructural variation reveals a distinct pattern of harvesting eggs in late ontogenetic stages. Harvesting eggs in later stages of embryonic growth may reflect human dietary preferences and foraging seasonality, but the observed pattern also supports the possibility that—as early as the Late Pleistocene—people were collecting eggs in order to hatch and rear cassowary chicks.

早期人类觅食者如何影响岛屿森林是一个涉及多个学科的话题，包括资源管理。矛盾的是，觅食群落对更新世末期和全新世早期的影响既是极端的——就像在关于人类驱动的动物灭绝的辩论中一样——与农民和牧民后来的景观转变相比，也是最小的。我们调查了热带雨林狩猎采集者如何管理新几内亚山区的资源，并通过全新世中期对食火鸡（Aves：Casuariidae）的开发提供了一些关于晚更新世的最早文献。在世界范围内，大多数岛屿平胸在人类抵达后于全新世晚期被灭绝，包括马达加斯加的象鸟（Aepyornithidae）和新西兰的恐鸟（Dinornithiformes）——人为岛屿破坏的象征。然而，食火鸡是例外，新几内亚和澳大利亚的种群持续存在。人们对过去的人类剥削以及导致他们生存的因素知之甚少。我们提出了一种通过分析考古蛋壳的微观结构特征来推断过去人类与大型鸟类相互作用的方法。然后，我们将山地觅食者的食火鸡狩猎和鸡蛋收获置于背景下，并讨论人类剥削的影响。我们的数据表明，食火鸡卵的采集可能比成年人的采集更为普遍。此外，我们对食火鸡蛋壳微观结构变异的分析揭示了在个体发育后期收获卵子的独特模式。