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I still believe it was due to Humans. Megafauna disappeared around the time Humans reached the Americas, way too much of a coincidence to me. These mammals we
by jmclnx 2y ago
I still believe it was due to Humans. Megafauna disappeared around the time Humans reached the Americas, way too much of a coincidence to me. These mammals were there before the Ice Age and I think the coming of the ice age was just as hard on then as the retreating ice.
The difference were humans.
- chrisco255 2y agoActually they're not really clear on the timelines of extinction and arrival so it's not an open and shut case.
- mdavidn 2y agoThe same fate befell the moa, a large flightless bird native to New Zealand.
- lostlogin 2y agoThe Haast Eagle too. They hunted Moa, and as you’d expect from an eagle that hunted 200kg birds, it too was a monster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle
- mkl 2y agoAnd New Zealand's other big birds (e.g. giant geese, harriers, eagles, swans [1]), after humans arrived. And elephant birds and giant lemurs in Madagascar, after humans arrived. And many large animals in Australia (giant wombats, kangaroos, marsupial "lions", etc. [2]), after humans arrived. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_birds_of_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_birds_of_New_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna
- dexwiz 2y agoWhat about the inverse? Humans expanded to the Americas after megafauna populations were reduced. Its easy to look at things like poaching and assume humans have always been the dominate species. But megafanua like moose or brown bears are still dangerous, even today.
- cjbgkagh 2y agoWe don’t spend much time dealing with mega fauna like moose or brown bears anymore so are generally unprepared for it. But if it was a bigger part of our lives I’m pretty sure we would dominate even with cavemen level tools.
- dixhsgfd 2y agoI think a lot of the megafuauna have bones found near humans and other signs of hunting and the inverse meaning human bones with animal bites isn’t as common.
- dexwiz 2y agoYeah, I am playing a bit of devils advocate here. Things like glyptodon would have been easy targets in theory. I do wonder if human processing of animals makes their bones more likely to find. Most of what we find about ancient humans comes from trash pits. Animals don’t always bring food to the same place, and scavengers can further distribute and decompose parts. There have been cases of human bone caches made by animals, like in the Sauida Arabian lava tube. But that seems like a relatively ideal condition for long term preservation.
- ramblenode 2y ago> But megafanua like moose or brown bears are still dangerous, even today. They are dangerous to individual humans but they are a resource to groups of humans.
- benced 2y agoAt this point, I regard most efforts in this direction as silly and ill-fated attempts to exonerate us. I'm not entirely sure why either.
- TeaBrain 2y agoExonerate who? None of us were around 50k years ago.
- longitudinal93 2y agoIt's the same story in Australia. Several large slow creatures that disappeared shortly after the arrival of humans. I think trying to pin the blame solely on the weather is simply because it's much more in sync with the "stewards and custodians of the land" narrative that is currently so fashionable.
- sudofail 2y agoOr simply because we don't have evidance of Homo Sapiens in the Americas until ~20k years ago, 30k years after megafuana extinction.
- colechristensen 2y agoThere were wooly mammoths alive in 2000 BC, 600 years after the Great Pyramid was built. There is evidence of humans and mammoths being in north America together. https://www.livescience.com/woolly-mammoths-in-north-america-longer https://www.livescience.com/woolly-mammoths-in-north-america...
- mkl 2y agoThe extinction doesn't seem to have happened 50k years ago in North America. That seems to have been made up by whoever wrote the headline. The date of 50k years ago does not seem to appear anywhere in the linked academic paper, does not correspond to climate change at the start of the current interglacial, and does not correspond to evidence of the arrival of humans in North America. Even the body of the phys.org article doesn't say the extinction happened then.
- askvictor 2y agoI thought it was accepted that Australian megafauna went extinct due to humans. But could also be a combination of factors e.g weakened by a climatic shift then finished off by newly arrived human predators
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y agoMy thoughts as well. If the native Americans had the technological ability to extinct the Buffalo they would have done it. Just as they killed off many more fragile species and other tribes. Life in pre Colombian America was just as nasty as it was in post Colombian America.
- rfwhyte 2y agoAnother fact that supports this perspective is that the North American megafauna survived through numerous cycles of ice ages prior to the arrival of humans. There was nothing particularly unique or special about the last ice age, the only real difference was the presence of humans. One thing I find particular interesting though, is that there are likely two unique extinction events. One around 50KYA, that coincides with what I personally believe was the first peopling of the Americas, and another around 16KYA, which coincides with the arrival of North Americas current indigenous population.
- RajT88 2y agoI am reserving judgement. But extincting megafauna sure sounds like something we would do.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoYep. I can't prove it but I know it's true. Us humans have caused too much environmental harm to list, but here are the top hits: - Chopped down all the trees on Easter Island - Overharvested laserpicium in Cyrenaica (Libya) - Hunted passenger pigeons to extinction - Hunted bison nearly to extinction - Overfished sardines off Monterey Bay California Tragedy of the Commons is the default setting for most all of human history, while sustainability like ancient Japan and modern regulations in most countries are the exceptions. And, anthropogenic climate change is indirectly leading to untold mass extinctions on a global scale.
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- IncreasePosts 2y agoMy problem with humans did it, even though it seems most likely, is there weren't very many humans, and the Americas are so large. Wouldn't some isolated populations continue to exist? Also, where are all the megafauna remains in middens?
- WithinReason 2y agoHumans might have migrated because the Ice Age ended. Correlation ≠ causation.