According to Wikipedia article researchers are still discussing that.
Logic makes me wonder how much humans had to do with their extinction. Even now, we haven't killed off elephants in Africa.
When you think about modern large fauna like moose, bison, brown bears, wild ox, which are damn big enough, it appears stone age type folk didn't seem to make huge dents in their populations....
I'm very sceptical humans had much to do with the demise of mammoths, etc.
Megafauna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scroll down to 'Megafaunal mass extinctions'.
It seems globally most large species disappeared shortly after humans arrived in the area at times when there was no meaningful climate change.
It has been estimated that during their colonization of the pacific islands the polynesians exterminated 20% of all the bird species on earth.
As well as fairly extensively terraforming Australia from lush forest to desert.
No bringing back of prey animals without predators. Maybe a Dire wolf? Short faced bear?
Coincidence is not evidence of causation. Lots of large animals survived stone age hunters.
What is "meaningful climate change"?
Simply put, it's redundancy😀
Croatian word "čaj" ( pronunciation like 'chai)= tea
It means that with a very few exceptions climate change can not explain the majority of megafauna extinctions.
In other words the only factor that changed was the arrival of humans either killing the animals directly or competing for living space.
For example the european cave bear only hibernated in caves most of which were eventually used by humans for shelter. Religion also might have played a role since a number of caves were found with altar-like structures surrounded by and filled with cave bear bones from hundreds and in at least one case thousands of individual bears.
Also the only place were megafauna still exists is Africa. Basically they evolved with humans around and are unusually aggressive for animals that size.
In other words the only factor that changed was the arrival of humans either killing the animals directly or competing for living space.
For example the european cave bear only hibernated in caves most of which were eventually used by humans for shelter. Religion also might have played a role since a number of caves were found with altar-like structures surrounded by and filled with cave bear bones from hundreds and in at least one case thousands of individual bears.
Also the only place were megafauna still exists is Africa. Basically they evolved with humans around and are unusually aggressive for animals that size.
That's what I thought.
I knew chai means tea in practically all slavic languages (although the spelling varies not least because some use the cyrillic alphabet) and turkish, farsi and indian languages. They all derive the word from the chinese word for tea (cha).
Your second sentence above implies a contradiction of the first sentence.
Is that intentional?
I fail to see the contradiction.
Generally animals without predators (ie most really large ones) have no fear of or aggression towards humans except the african ones who evolved alongside us over the last few million years.
Generally animals without predators (ie most really large ones) have no fear of or aggression towards humans except the african ones who evolved alongside us over the last few million years.
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I've got a little time. I'll break it down some more.
"Also the only place were megafauna still exists is Africa"
An easily understood statement.
So in speaking contemporaneously, we can say "African megafauna."
Let's apply it here:
"Basically they evolved with humans around and are unusually aggressive for animals that size."
which becomes:
Basically African megafauna evolved with humans around and are unusually aggressive for African megafauna.
Is that what you meant?
"Large" and "really large" are relative descriptions; I'm not sure what animals are included or excluded by those adjectives alone.
The largest land animal, the elephant, has both African and Asian species.
No, it isn't as it makes very little sense.
Aggression is a sign of fear. No aggression = no fear = easily killed.
Aggression is a sign of fear. No aggression = no fear = easily killed.
Yes! That's what I thought, too.
Aggression can be a sign of fear.
Sometimes fear is a sign of fear, and your equation therefore makes very little sense.
Animals can be aggressive for a wide variety of reasons: fear, illness, hunger, protection of territory or mate or offspring, etc., etc.
I'm continuing sceptical about the the contribution of stone age hunters to extinction of large mammals at end of last ice age. Read article quoted below.
Looking at the other articles linked on the right of that page reminds us that this is not at all a settled topic.
Looking at the other articles linked on the right of that page reminds us that this is not at all a settled topic.
A 'smoking gun' on Ice Age megafauna extinctions -- ScienceDaily
Humans have a proven track record of wiping out species, my gut tells me we played a big part in ancient extinctions. Some highly respected experts like Tim Flannery believe humans hastened the end of many species. It's an interesting debate.
Tim Flannery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
billshurv You can add the steller sea cow to that list
Steller's sea cow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Humans trash the place, it's really depressing.
Tim Flannery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
billshurv You can add the steller sea cow to that list
Steller's sea cow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Humans trash the place, it's really depressing.
From wiki:
"Outside the mainland of Afro-Eurasia, these megafaunal extinctions followed a highly distinctive landmass-by-landmass pattern that closely parallels the spread of humans into previously uninhabited regions of the world, and which shows no correlation with climatic history (which can be visualized with plots over recent geological time periods of climate markers such as marine oxygen isotopes or atmospheric carbon dioxide levels).[22][23] Australia was struck first around 45,000 years ago,[24] followed by Tasmania about 41,000 years ago (after formation of a land bridge to Australia about 43,000 years ago),[25][26][27] Japan apparently about 30,000 years ago,[28] North America 13,000 years ago, South America about 500 years later,[29][30] Cyprus 10,000 years ago,[31][32] the Antilles 6000 years ago,[33] New Caledonia[34] and nearby islands[35] 3000 years ago, Madagascar 2000 years ago,[36] New Zealand 700 years ago,[37] the Mascarenes 400 years ago,[38] and the Commander Islands 250 years ago.[39] Nearly all of the world's isolated islands could furnish similar examples of extinctions occurring shortly after the arrival of Homo sapiens, though most of these islands, such as the Hawaiian Islands, never had terrestrial megafauna, so their extinct fauna were smaller."
Not enough ice ages (or other meaningful climate changes)to explain them all me thinks.
"Outside the mainland of Afro-Eurasia, these megafaunal extinctions followed a highly distinctive landmass-by-landmass pattern that closely parallels the spread of humans into previously uninhabited regions of the world, and which shows no correlation with climatic history (which can be visualized with plots over recent geological time periods of climate markers such as marine oxygen isotopes or atmospheric carbon dioxide levels).[22][23] Australia was struck first around 45,000 years ago,[24] followed by Tasmania about 41,000 years ago (after formation of a land bridge to Australia about 43,000 years ago),[25][26][27] Japan apparently about 30,000 years ago,[28] North America 13,000 years ago, South America about 500 years later,[29][30] Cyprus 10,000 years ago,[31][32] the Antilles 6000 years ago,[33] New Caledonia[34] and nearby islands[35] 3000 years ago, Madagascar 2000 years ago,[36] New Zealand 700 years ago,[37] the Mascarenes 400 years ago,[38] and the Commander Islands 250 years ago.[39] Nearly all of the world's isolated islands could furnish similar examples of extinctions occurring shortly after the arrival of Homo sapiens, though most of these islands, such as the Hawaiian Islands, never had terrestrial megafauna, so their extinct fauna were smaller."
Not enough ice ages (or other meaningful climate changes)to explain them all me thinks.
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