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Large mammals were not, in fact, hunted to extinction. Archaeologists have understood this since the '90s, although Wikipedia has still not caught up. The Nort
by angiosperm 3y ago
Large mammals were not, in fact, hunted to extinction. Archaeologists have understood this since the '90s, although Wikipedia has still not caught up.
The North American megafauna, 30+ genera strong, were wiped out by the end-Pleistocene comet strike that caused continent-wide wildfires 12,800 years ago, as recorded in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores. This comet strike coincided with the beginning of the Younger Dryas cold spell, and is suspected of causing it. North America at the time boasted giant sloths, mastodons, mammoths, dire wolves, camels, horses, saber-tooth cats, and beavers, bison and bears much larger than what is left. Their fossils mostly appear right up to the continent-wide black mat of platinum-enriched soot, and not above it.
So those remaining of people who had been making Clovis spear points were obliged to shift to hunting the smaller game that remained, and made the smaller Folsom and other projectile point styles after. The continent-wide uniformity of Clovis points before the strike may have been a consequence of their status as trade goods, where deviation would reduce their value. After, the trade networks may have been disrupted, or maybe smaller points were easier to make, so were less valuable to trade. Most questions will probably never be answered.
- amatic 3y agoCould you share some references, like a recent review or consensus? I've seen different takes on the causes of megafauna extinction, and one story is that the extinction lines up pretty well with the arrival of humans to North America. But recent evidence seems to put the arrival of humans to a few thousand years before the Younger Dryas?
- angiosperm 3y agoWe know there were modern humans in North America 22,000+ years ago. So did hunters go along fine for 9000 years with no impact, and then suddenly, at one stroke, wipe out everything they depended on? It never made any sense even before we knew about the comet strike or earlier arrival. We had lions in Europe right up until the Roman circuses, and still have them and elephants in Africa, and tigers and elephants in India. There is a good survey article on the status of the end-Pleistocene comet strike by Martin Sweatman. Follow references from there to Antarctic ice cores. (Boslough and Holliday have a great deal to be ashamed of.)
- mc32 3y agoIt’s about likelihood. There are all sorts of things that can influence consumption patterns. Change in climate could result in fewer sources of food as drought or inclement stunted certain crops which cascaded into fewer food sources for upstream predators where at the apex we had our fore-bearers who may had decimated populations till there were not enough to sustain the species.
- angiosperm 3y agoAbout likelihood, what are the odds that the biggest bear in North America was Clovis peoples' favorite game animal?
- rfwhyte 3y agoPretty intellectually disingenuous to present a fringe theory that is far from the scientific consensus as accepted fact.
- angiosperm 3y agoTell me without saying that your information all comes from old Wikipedia articles.