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New carbon dates link climatic change with human colonization and Pleistocene extinctions

Dale Guthrie, R.·2006·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature04604
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Abstract

Drastic ecological restructuring, species redistribution and extinctions mark the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, but an insufficiency of numbers of well-dated large mammal fossils from this transition have impeded progress in understanding the various causative links. Here I add many new radiocarbon dates to those already published on late Pleistocene fossils from Alaska and the Yukon Territory (AK-YT) and show previously unrecognized patterns. Species that survived the Pleistocene, for example, bison (Bison priscus, which evolved into Bison bison), wapiti (Cervus canadensis) and, to a smaller degree, moose (Alces alces), began to increase in numbers and continued to do so before and during human colonization and before the regional extinction of horse (Equus ferus) and mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). These patterns allow us to reject, at least in AK-YT, some hypotheses of late Pleistocene extinction: 'Blitzkrieg' version of simultaneous human overkill, 'keystone' removal, and 'palaeo-disease'. Hypotheses of a subtler human impact and/or ecological replacement or displacement are more consistent with the data. The new patterns of dates indicate a radical ecological sorting during a uniquely forage-rich transitional period, affecting all large mammals, including humans.

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Research works printed but not linked: 30

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Metadata

Authors
Dale Guthrie, R.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2006-05
Volume
441
Issue
7090
Pages
207-209
ISSN
  • 0028-0836
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature04604
Cited by
245
References
0
Language
en
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)

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