Humans to Blame for Ice Age Extinctions, Study Says

National Geographic ^ | August 10, 2005 | Hillery Mayell

[taxesareforever]

Common sense will win a war over scientific evaluation. Matter of fact, the war would be long over before the scientific solution were agreed upon by the elitists.

[FastCoyote]

"Burp" Ha Ha!

"sloths survived until about 4,400 years ago. " on Hispaniola and Caribbean islands.

That means long boats of some sort arrived 4400 years ago. That would coincide with Egyptian and Phoenician development. Coinkidink? I ask you.

[Drammach]

Now I can't find buffalo jerky anywhere.

As any good hunter knows, buffalo jerky can be found at your nearest gun show...

[Drammach]

The fact is, after the ice the water of the plains eventurally went away, as rain fall wasn't that great, the prey annimals died and then the big predators died from lack of food.

A good deal of the central plains was actually woodland at the time.. At least that south of the glacial lakes..
When the glacial dams ( I think they were called Morains ) broke under the pressure, great floods swept south destroying much of those woodlands..
They weren't that heavy, but much more forested than the plains of today..
Those woodlands provided cover for predators, allowing them to close in on their prey before a quick, rushing attack to dispatch the prey..

Additionally the glacial lakes would have been fairly heavily forested along the shorelines..
In fact, as the glacial melt began, water levels would have risen right into the surrounding forestlands..
Big Cats especially, do a great deal of their hunting along the shores and banks of "watering holes"..
That is where the meat is..

Big predators need big protein..
Open plains mean plenty of running room for buffalo, antelope, etc..
Running down prey on an open plain requires even more protein..
Somewhere along the line, you find a point of no return, benefit less than effort required..
End result: Starvation..

I think you are essentially correct, but the actual emergence of wide open plains actually occurred at the end of the Ice age as well as all those other factors..
Climate change, (warming) glacial melt causing flooding, ( Mega Flash Floods ) The sudden loss of possibly thousands of small lakes and of course, the big glacial lakes, the loss of grazing land scoured by the floods, probably the deaths of millions of herbivores as well as thousands of carnivores..
All these factors would have contributed to the loss of not only mega fauna but taken a major chunk out of any other animal or human inhabitants throughout the Midwest, upper midwest, the northwest, large chunks of mid-southern Canada, etc...( Not positive about the eastern continent, but I seem to recall much of the same flooding, etc. took place there as well..
The arrival of a large number of new human inhabitants would have eventually contributed as well, ( I believe there were other, earlier, smaller groups scattered about along the east and gulf coast, as well as central and south american coast ) but I believe much of the "damage" was natural..
As others have pointed out, I don't think there were enough humans here at that point to have had that much effect on ALL of the Mega Fauna of America..
Just doesn't make sense..

[Night Hides Not]

As any good hunter knows, buffalo jerky can be found at your nearest gun show...

Thanks for the tip! I'll take my boys with me...it should be a lot of fun.

[Dustbunny]

No comment other than the fact that the grants that paid for this study were a waste of cash.

[dsc]

"And they were 100% wrong."

I must have missed their retraction. So, that whole thing turned out to be bogus?

[vannrox]

This is all speculation. The only "evidence" that the "so-called" experts had was that it appeared that the Giant Sloths died out around 11,000BC, and that it is a common assumption that humans emigrated to North America via the land bridge around 11,000 BC. That is not proof.

Proof are Giant Sloth bones with cut marks on them. Proof consists of cave paintings of Giant Sloths being hunted. Proof consists of a number of other things that are evidence for this speculation.

For all we know, the sloth tasted terrible. So just because one theory dovetails into another theory is no reason for an out and out connection, that is unless one states that the speculation has some solid rationale behind it.

[the invisib1e hand]

well, there ya have it. We global freeze, we global warm...seem evolution has really done a poor job by allowing us to proliferate so much.

[Lazamataz]

Humans are likely responsible for the extinction of Ice Age megafauna—large mammals like giant sloths, short-faced bears, mammoths, and saber-toothed cats—that occurred in the Americas around 11,000 years ago, a new study says.

That's okay. We still have cows.

[ZULU]

I think the main hole in their theory is that there is irrefutable proof that the Clovis First Theory is dead.

Unless they can come up with something better than a Clovis point as an indication of a new factor around 11,000 years ago, this theory holds no water - not even ice.

Why did man live here for over 30,000 years without eating into extinction all the ice age megafauna, and then all of a sudden, 11,000 years ago wipe them out??

Some cultural change?? New "invaders"?

[Drammach]

Thanks for the tip! I'll take my boys with me...it should be a lot of fun.

Lots more than guns at Gun Shows..
Found a great refractor telescope there, cheap.. also binoculars.. In the late summer and fall, there are all sorts of hunting jackets, other gear, tons of knives, and kitchen-dining room cutlery, tools of all sorts, ( magnifiers, tweezers, "extra hands", vices, grinders ) exotic woods ( pick your project, not just for knife handles ) and other oddball stuff..

And of course, there are guns, but often you will find historical exhibits as well..
Civil War weapons, complete with photos of the military units that used them..
Historical western gear, used by cowboys, sherriffs, outlaws, you name it.. again, often accompanied by photos, sherrriff's badges, other documents..
There can also be WW1, WW2 memorabilia, from all the military branches, and tons of books recounting various military operations from Sicily to Iwo Jima..

Throughout, you will find Men and Women that are dedicated to America, Patriotism, and the 2nd amendment..
A good message and example for young men..

Have a good time..

[Republican Wildcat]

It's Bush's fault. He should be forced apologize and explain why this had to happen.

[Smokin' Joe]

They are warming up to blaming the humans for melting all those nice ice sheets, too.

Just one small problem, though. Humans were on the North American Continent long before the Clovis types which are generally dated ca 12,000 years ago. Seems they would have gnawed the last of the big critters before Clovis or Folsum cultures got their spears sharpened...

Ordinary climate change and diminishing habitat got the megafauna, and climate has been changing and will continue to change regardless of humans actions short of full tilt nuclear war. I really doubt we have that much global influence.

Most of this crap was started as a Communist Bloc effort (their seed money plus a lot of useful idiots) to shut down West Bloc industry during the Cold War.

[Smokin' Joe]

Pretty soon we will have somehow made the dinos die off.

Nasty little pygmies eating thunder lizard omlettes.....

[Smokin' Joe]

One hunt provided meat until the smell got too bad, and then they pulled stakes and left the area. It was a pig-out, with whatever could be eaten eaten, whatever could be smoked preserved, and the rest left to rot.

Not until the horse (nasty white guy innovation) did the hunt become more efficient, just because they could take individual animals instead of killing them wholesale.

[Smokin' Joe]

Maybe 11,000 years ago they invented the chilli cook-off?

[isom35]

those cavemen drove SUVs ?

[cookcounty]

"Humans are likely responsible for the extinction of Ice Age megafauna .....that occurred in the Americas around 11,000 years ago, a new study says. "

.......Solid evidence that Europeans arrived in America long before Columbus.

[KingNo155]

HE was killing all those creatures and burying them in shale so he could reap oil profits 11,000 years later!