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The fire hypothesis is compatible with what you said. The idea is that humans either directly or indirectly caused frequent and vast wildfires that destroyed ec

by Blahah 3y ago

The fire hypothesis is compatible with what you said. The idea is that humans either directly or indirectly caused frequent and vast wildfires that destroyed ecosystems, and those fires either killed animals directly or destroyed the resources they needed to survive.

cyberax 3y ago
Not really? Megafauna disappeared everywhere in Americas, including in the Central and South America, that are not susceptible to massive wildfires. It's far more likely that people simply poked animals to death with sharp sticks.
- angiosperm 3y ago
  It is completely impossible that people drove all these animals extinct with sharp sticks. People lived in the Americas for thousands of years without affecting them noticeably, and then they all disappeared suddenly, 30+ genera strong, along with the Clovis people. We know from polar ice cores that the Americas were shrouded in dense smoke 12,800 years ago from fires started by the comet strikes at that specific time. Central and South America are certainly susceptible to massive wildfires, like anywhere shrouded with combustibles.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    > It is completely impossible that people drove all these animals extinct with sharp sticks. Why? Spears are extremely effective and deadly. And it happened everywhere else. Megafauna also disappeared in Asia, as soon as humans appeared. > People lived in the Americas for thousands of years without affecting them In other words: animals existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but they disappeared within several hundred of years, right as human settlement waves moved across the Americas.
    - angiosperm 3y ago
      > Spears are extremely effective and deadly. And continents are big, and people very unevenly distributed. 13kya there were few humans on any continent. It takes more than spears to eliminate mastodons, mammoths, short-faced bears, dire wolves, sabretooth cats, cheetahs, camels, horses, giant sloths in one blow. Humans did not drive 30+ genera to extinction in the Americas all in under a century, after coexisting for millennia; and did not lay down a film of dust enriched with platinum over the whole continent, or torch it. They did not wipe out their whole material culture at the same time. Nothing Clovis, or any of those genera, are found anywhere above the layer of platinum-enriched charcoal and ash dust. Horses and elephants did not become extinct in Eurasia, where people hunted far longer. You might notice Africa still sports plenty of megafauna.

by Blahah 3y ago

cyberax 3y ago

Not really? Megafauna disappeared everywhere in Americas, including in the Central and South America, that are not susceptible to massive wildfires. It's far more likely that people simply poked animals to death with sharp sticks.

angiosperm 3y ago
It is completely impossible that people drove all these animals extinct with sharp sticks. People lived in the Americas for thousands of years without affecting them noticeably, and then they all disappeared suddenly, 30+ genera strong, along with the Clovis people. We know from polar ice cores that the Americas were shrouded in dense smoke 12,800 years ago from fires started by the comet strikes at that specific time. Central and South America are certainly susceptible to massive wildfires, like anywhere shrouded with combustibles.
- cyberax 3y ago
  > It is completely impossible that people drove all these animals extinct with sharp sticks. Why? Spears are extremely effective and deadly. And it happened everywhere else. Megafauna also disappeared in Asia, as soon as humans appeared. > People lived in the Americas for thousands of years without affecting them In other words: animals existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but they disappeared within several hundred of years, right as human settlement waves moved across the Americas.
  - angiosperm 3y ago
    > Spears are extremely effective and deadly. And continents are big, and people very unevenly distributed. 13kya there were few humans on any continent. It takes more than spears to eliminate mastodons, mammoths, short-faced bears, dire wolves, sabretooth cats, cheetahs, camels, horses, giant sloths in one blow. Humans did not drive 30+ genera to extinction in the Americas all in under a century, after coexisting for millennia; and did not lay down a film of dust enriched with platinum over the whole continent, or torch it. They did not wipe out their whole material culture at the same time. Nothing Clovis, or any of those genera, are found anywhere above the layer of platinum-enriched charcoal and ash dust. Horses and elephants did not become extinct in Eurasia, where people hunted far longer. You might notice Africa still sports plenty of megafauna.