Where the Mammoths and the Mastodons roam …
Before humans arrived on North America, there were large numbers of what we call "mega-fauna" (mega=big, fauna=animals). We’re talking mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, giant beavers, and smaller critters like the short-faced bear and horse. But … they are gone now. Why? Okay, there were several competing theories. One of the major ones, and the one that we were debating when I was in school, was the theory that humans slaughtered all the mega fauna. Oops. So much for being "one with the Earth". But … it turns out while while early North Americans were enjoying their mammoth ribs and mastodon stew, it was climate and vegetation change that was the kicker.
From today’s Globe and Mail:
He has found evidence that the climate in Yukon and Alaska was warming between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, around the time a wave of human hunters moved into North America from Asia. The North was changing from a grassland to a boreal forest and tundra, he says. Moose also arrived, and were better adapted to digest the new, woodier plants that were taking over.
A close examination of the fossil record suggests moose and other browsers probably competed against the mammoths and other ice-age grazers for food, Dr. Guthrie says.
In this week’s edition of the British journal Nature, he makes the argument for a less bloody ending to the mystery of what happened to the mammoths, mastodons, camels, giant sloths, horses and beavers as big as black bears that once lived in North America.
They disappeared from the continent around the same time adept hunters known as the Clovis people moved in. Many scientists argue that the timing was not a coincidence. The blitzkrieg theory, put forward in the 1960s, argued that people quickly destroyed the naive beasts unaccustomed to attacks from humans.
Many of the mega-fauna had already disappeared (sloths, beavers, bears) and the others (the ones dependant on open grasslands) just couldn’t cut it.
Now, consider this. With the current state of climate change as it is … there will be another round of climate-induced mass extinctions. Animal living in tight climate bands (like the poles) will likely be the first to be affected.
Think about that next time you fill up your SUV.
Tags: Pleistocene mega fauna, mega fauna, mammoths, mastodon, Clovis people, global climate change, mass extinctions
2 Comments
I read a book that was the first of a series, People of the Wolf? I think it was, that dealt with the topic of this movement of humans from Siberia into Northern America. It was fiction, and the premise intriguing, and the time spent reading it could have been better used for just about anything else.
It would be nice if people changed their consumption habits out of consideration for the earth, but I think most will only do so out of consideration for their wallet. oops. that was my cynical side peeking out. must mean it’s close to bedtime for me!
There are lots of theories about the migration from Eurasia to North America. There is lots of debate around the timing, the numbers of people and the rate of expansion.
The main problem is that those early people were very nomadic (we surmise) and didn’t leave a lot behind.