Omnivores Not to Blame
for Mammoth Extinction?

mammoth hunters

Blame a swarm of comets striking North America 12,900 years ago for the environmental disaster that caused the extinction of mammoths and many other species, say scientists quoted in a CNN report.

“The nanodiamonds that we found at all six locations exist only in sediments associated with the Younger Dryas Boundary layers, not above it or below it,” said University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas Kennett. “These discoveries provide strong evidence for a cosmic impact event at approximately 12,900 years ago that would have had enormous environmental consequences for plants, animals and humans across North America.”

An earlier theory advanced to explain the mass extinction in North America of half of the animal species weighing more than 100 pounds is that when Man migrated over the Bering land bridge, he ate all of them. Not on the very first day, of course.

I don’t know if I’m ready to abandon that theory, either. I find it incredibly easy to believe after a nonstop week of Christmas-to-New-Year’s feasting.

3 thoughts on “Omnivores Not to Blame
for Mammoth Extinction?

  1. I have a question. Is this incident, 12,900 years ago, associated with the decline of the mega fauna on the European and Asiatic continents? Is it the catalyst for large migratons of the human population of that time period? The environmental devestation theory seems to hold a more legimate claim. If the theory that the hunter-gatherers were simply following the game when they discovered North America, wouldn’t there have been major population sites in the Northern tundra and siberian areas of Asia. It seems this would be the case, since the mega fauna was their primary means of sustenance.

  2. Well, mammoths did go extinct all over the world, wherever there was people. I have a hard time believing a comet in North America could be the lone culprit.
    We are pretty nasty brutes after all. Just look at how we’ve almost killed off most of the elephants. It’s not hard to draw a line from elephant extinction to mammoth extinction

  3. I’ve seen programs on the Discovery, Nat’l Geographic, and/or History channels with regard to this (they tend to blend in memory, especially when all three of them do separate-but-similar programs, as all three did with what would happen on Earth if humankind suddenly disappeared). I think this is also related to the disappearance of the Clovis Point cultures and the formation of Chesapeake Bay as an impact basin from a series of oblique strikes from southeast to northwest.

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