Quite a few respected scientists believe that woolly mammoths were hunted to extinction by humans. Of course, other factors may have been involved. The climate is always changing. But, it seems a bit more than circumstantial that shortly after humans discovered the new world, most of the large mammals went extinct.
Men and dogs together form a predatory combination that is very hard to defeat. Large animals provide some of the most meat for the least effort.
I think of the first thousand years of human existence in the new world as a golden age. Nothing to do but to hunt, make babies and explore. Almost no disease. Of course, their descendants paid for it later when European and Asian diseases wiped out large numbers of them.
I thought I heard that as well. Driveserve is correct about the dodo, they have a stuffed dodo at the British Museum in London. But, I believe that archeologists did find evidence of weapons found near bones of wooly mammoths however the other factor I thought was the ice age.
If we had a time machine we'd all know but everything now is theoretical. Archaeology is a mess now a days. I took archaeology in under grad and you wouldn't believe how many argue with each other about nearly everything. The worst thing is this "Ancient Aliens" show on History Channel. They have these whack jobs who claim everything in the pre-modern world was done by aliens.
There was only one thing on the Ancient Alien show that did intrigue me and maybe you guys since you both sound knowledgeable about pre-modern history. They showed a map showing Antarctica as it looks underneath all of the ice. That really surprised me as we know that they couldn't do that until modern tech satellites were able to identify the landmass. Completely off topic but was wondering if either of you had heard about that.