Human predation of mammoths probably contributed to their eventual extinction, but the changing climate almost certainly played a large role as well. If humans

Human predation of mammoths probably contributed to their eventual extinction, but the changing climate almost certainly played a large role as well. If humans hadn’t been around to hunt them they’d probably be extinct anyway. When they finally did go extinct about 4,000 years ago, they were only present on one island way up in the Arctic circle. Additionally, during the same time period megafauna in Africa have (well, until recently) continued to thrive despite the presence of humans and earlier hominids for millions of years. The difference is that humans were not native to the Americas, and arrived rather suddenly some tens of thousands of years ago. Meanwhile animals in Africa (and Asia and Europe which were populated much earlier than the Americas) spent much more time co-evolving with humans as predators.