A Perspective explores the hypothesis that climate change, and not human hunting, caused the extinction of 38 genera of mostly large mammals in North America at the end-Pleistocene glacial-interglacial transition; until the climatic changes that took place during prior transitions and the species' histories and adaptive tolerances are better understood, uncovering why the species survived earlier transitions only to disappear at the last transition, when humans arrived on the landscape, will remain a challenge, according to the author.
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Article #20-15032: "Overkill, glacial history, and the extinction of North America's Ice Age megafauna," by David J. Meltzer.
MEDIA CONTACT: David J. Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX; e-mail: <dmeltzer@smu.edu>
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences