(mostly) From Science News. Dec 19, 2009.
North American Megafauna: 14,000 to 11,000 years ago.giant sloths; short faced bears; giant polar bears; California tapirs; peccaries; the American lion; giant condors; Miracinonyx ; saber-toothed cats like Xenosmilus, Smilodon and the scimitar cat; Homotherium; dire wolves; saiga; camelids such as two species of now extinct llamas and Camelops; at least two species of bison; stag-moose; the shrub-ox and Harlan's muskox; horses; mammoths and mastodons; and giant beavers as well as birds like teratorns.
Giant Kangaroo: 45,000 years ago: Australia. Within 5,000 years of human settlement, 90% of mammal species larger than a house cat, including the giant kangaroo, had gone extinct.
Large Caribbean Sloths: 4,400 years ago: Caribbean. By 800 years after human settlement, serval species of sloths died out.
Elephant Bird: 1,000 years ago. Madagascar. Within a millennium of humans’ arrival, the island's elephant birds, and other magafauna, were largely gone.
Moa: 500 years ago. New Zealand. Within two centuries of human settlement.
Dodo: 350 years ago. Mauritius. Within five or six decades of the island's first permanent settlement, the dodo was done.
I don't deny that humans were responsible for eliminating some species. The moa's extinction happened in historical times and humans were the cause. I don't dispute that humans hunted some of the larger animals but I have a real problem imagining that small bands of hunters could wipe out the entire range of megafauna. The matter remains a totally open question in my mind.
“The spear points stuck into them seems to argue that they did focus on them other than to scavenge their remains.”
I’ll agree to disagree at this point.
The dual purpose use of a spear on large game: flensing.
It’s a fairy tale that either individual hunters or bands of hunters decided to sacrafice themselves or the safety of the hunting party to pursue dangerous game. I am often confronted by the anti-hunting community with similar presentations of “data”.
I imagine that (as tribes in africa had) they learned their lessons early and passed it on to generations: “if you mess with the mammoth, you’ll become a stain on the forest floor”
As far as the “list” provided, focusing on the mega-fauna and giant carnivores, they were on a decline without the help of man. I do believe that whatever the animals were feeding on, started to become scarce for a myriad of reasons.
Like Ruarke says: Use enough gun! our ancestors probably saw their buddy ‘Ogg’ get pummeled by a mammoth after a foolhardy assault.
My point: if large dangerous game was so easy to “take-out”, then why the heck did african and asian mega fauna survive when human population and technological advance was equal to or greater than the North American counterparts?
Maybe our North American ancstors were better at it?
Those were some really busy hunters. Sorry, not buying it. Did they hunt mammoths from time to time? I'm sure they did, but there's no way they were responsible for that butcher's bill you listed.
I would also point out that some of the other examples you listed were wiped out as a result of other non-indigenous animals that the people brought along with them. It turns out that flightless birds stuck on an island can't deal with dogs, rats and pigs eating them and their eggs.