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> it throws major wrenches into the hypothesis that the mastodons were hunted to extinction by early humans. Why would some small settlements ~20kya be a probl
by Will_Parker 9y ago
> it throws major wrenches into the hypothesis that the mastodons were hunted to extinction by early humans.
Why would some small settlements ~20kya be a problem for this hypothesis? Regardless of whether previous settlements at a smaller scale existed, the Clovis people were the first to have the technology and culture to be able to rapidly explode across the continent, and the time they did this coincides with the time of extinction pretty well, doesn't it?
- jcranmer 9y agoOne of the pieces of evidence that proponents of human overhunting of megafauna point to is the seeming correlation between "arrival of humans" and "extinction of megafauna" on most continents. Drawing that out by a few thousand years on one continent in particular weakens the correlation dramatically.
- Will_Parker 9y agoHow could some human settlements exclusively on and around the Pacific shore kill all megafauna on a whole continent? Postulating that the first settlement is more important than the time of a population explosion seems to lack the kind of common sense that Jared Diamond is talking about, to me.
- jcranmer 9y agoExcept the pre-Clovis sites aren't limited to the Pacific shore. Buttermilk Creek (15kya) is in Texas, for example.
- flukus 9y agoOr maybe there was an event that led us to over hunting. We could have been fine for thousands of years until another food supply was exhausted and what had to hunt mega-fauna more. They weren't stupid, they didn't hunt large animals unless they had too.