The conclusion of the last Ice Age coincided with the extinction of numerous large mammal genera in North America, ranging from mammoths and mastodons to bison and saber-toothed cats. However, the specifics of when and how this happened have long been shrouded in uncertainty. Recently, a group of
Researchers studied bones from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits to uncover the detailed extinction timeline of megafauna during the late Pleistocene in North America. Their findings suggest a link between human-induced fires and the rapid extinction of these large mammals amid climate changes similar to today’s patterns.
Armed with their new data, the researchers subsequently used time-series modeling to produce the most detailed chronobiology to date, showing the relationships between climate and vegetation change, fire activity, human demographics, and megafauna extinctions — groundbreaking results they report in the Aug. 18 edition of the world-leading academic journal.
While humans hunted animals during this period, Waters says the impact of hunting on the demise of the megafauna likely was minor because of the low population of humans on the landscape. However, the fires would have been devastating, resulting in the loss of habitat causing the rapid decline and extinction of the megafauna in southern California. The study suggests these fires were ignited by humans, which had increased in number by that time.
While Waters acknowledges that this is the story of extinction at Rancho La Brea, he says it has the potential to offer insights into when extinctions happened across all of North America.
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