Thirteen Thousand Years Ago WHAT HAPPENED?
Jun 18, 2018 14:22:59 GMT -5
1dave and grumpybill like this
Post by lookatthat on Jun 18, 2018 14:22:59 GMT -5
I would also add Irish Elk (megaloceros)and kin for impressive Pleistocene epoch megafauna.
I read a stupid article last month that stated that Man killed off the megafauna. Their reasoning was -- the animals disappeared shortly after Man appeared, ergo, Man caused the disappearance of the animals. Which is the same logic a 5-year old applies when his parents get a divorce. Fact #1: I got in trouble in school in school. Fact #2: Daddy left. Daddy must have left because I got I trouble in school.
With Man and the megafauna, could it be that the environmental changes that caused Man to move into the New World also 1. Drove the animals into the New World and then 2.caused stresses that the populations couldn't overcome? Perhaps they couldn't adapt to changes fast enough. Perhaps there were new diseases in the New World. Who knows? But it doesn't seem likely that Man, in tiny numbers across a vast landscape, without firearms or the combustible engine, could put enough pressure on numerous and diverse animal populations to cause mass extinctions.
Man did have one significant tool for altering the environment -- fire. But how much impact could small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers have on the landscape?
I read a stupid article last month that stated that Man killed off the megafauna. Their reasoning was -- the animals disappeared shortly after Man appeared, ergo, Man caused the disappearance of the animals. Which is the same logic a 5-year old applies when his parents get a divorce. Fact #1: I got in trouble in school in school. Fact #2: Daddy left. Daddy must have left because I got I trouble in school.
With Man and the megafauna, could it be that the environmental changes that caused Man to move into the New World also 1. Drove the animals into the New World and then 2.caused stresses that the populations couldn't overcome? Perhaps they couldn't adapt to changes fast enough. Perhaps there were new diseases in the New World. Who knows? But it doesn't seem likely that Man, in tiny numbers across a vast landscape, without firearms or the combustible engine, could put enough pressure on numerous and diverse animal populations to cause mass extinctions.
Man did have one significant tool for altering the environment -- fire. But how much impact could small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers have on the landscape?
... to the New Guys from The ChatBox V.2 Crew