Humans contributed greatly to the extinction of megafaunal species during the last Ice Age. When these giants disappear, the impacts on the environment are appropriately ground shaking.
Humans contributed greatly to the extinction of megafaunal species during the last Ice Age. When these giants disappear, the impacts on the environment are appropriately ground shaking. Sometimes we get a rather distorted view of Earth history; like in movies when early humans are shown frolicking with dinosaurs. However, although human-dino interactions are the stuff of artistic fantasy, there was a period not so long ago when people did live alongside terrestrial giants or "megafauna", like wholly mammoth, sabre tooth tiger and the giant sloth. So what happened to these mega-beasts? Why don’t they roam the tundra and savannahs today? The waves of megafaunal extinction that occurred globally during and slightly after the last ice ages (late-Pleistocene; before around 11,000 years ago) have been explained by two prime causes: 1. natural, but rapid climate change (1) as the Earth moved from cold glacial conditions into the current warm, interglacial period, and 2. hunting pressure from humans (2), who were spreading themselves throughout the continents.
|
AuthorJohn Carson is a palynologist working mostly in the South American tropics and currently based at University of Reading. Archives |