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Early Man: The Cause of Mass Extinction?
xpccx writes: "There's an article over at CNN about the possibility that early man hunted large animals ( like mammoths ) into extinction. "New work by American and Australian researchers is adding weight to the theory, while undercutting the notion that climate change and not human influence was the cause."" Update: 06/14 03:32 PM by H : This is touched on in Guns, Germs and Steel, which I highly recommend. This has been the going theory with many (most?) historians as to why the megafauna in Australia, the Americas all disappeared within a couple thousand years of the appearance of humans. Considering they had survived countless millenia before our arrival, I'm inclined to think that the two events might just kinda be linked.
Anthropology in the News has links to a lot more news stories on these findings. The BBC story is very short, but noteworthy for including a little bit of information on the dating methods used in the Australian case.
Anthropology in the News updates a lot and doesn't keep stuff on its front page for very long, so for the sake of Slashdot's archives, I'm copying the links here.
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The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow)
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually mammoths didn't die off as long ago as everbody thought. There was an isolated group on an island that survived until only 5000 years ago. The thinking is that being on a remote island protected them from hunting by man which is why they survived so long. Details here, including the quote: "...surprisingly recent dates on woolly mammoth remains from Wrangel Island in 1990, ranging between 7390-4740 BP. The finds were remarkable for two reasons: they indicated mammoth survival on Wrangel Island for as much as 5000 years after the last known date of mammoths on the Eurasian continent, and they documented the evolution of a distinct dwarf mammoth population on Wrangel Island." Other theories include a virus induced extinction , but I think it was man... To me, even more interesting is whether or not man killed off Neandertals. These guys were all over Europe for a very long time, and they were smart enought to fight back. A war with them would have truly been "World War One". There is so far only one possible example of a possible human-Neandertal hybrid , so their disappearance probably wasn't from interbreeding...Let's take a poll, did humans deliberately destroy neandertals or were they the original Homer Simpsons that just died out???
Accepting evolution and the big bang as truth doesn't require rejecting religion. It doesn't even require rejecting fundamentalist Christian religion.
I've never really understood all the hoopla about this subject. There was a time, roughly the 1950s, when most of the U.S. professed to Christianity and nearly all of the U.S. was enraptured by science. If there's such a big conflict between science and creationism and evolution, wouldn't you think it would have been a big topic of debate back then? Yeah, the discussion flared up occasionally then and before (Scopes, anyone?), but most people just seemed to go along with one foot in each camp.
Or did they?
When I was a wee child, I was taught that science had most of the answers precisely because it was helping us understand the wonderful universe God had made. I was taught that God created everything in 7 days. And I was also reminded that the concept of time is pretty elastic. God probably doesn't view it like we do. Remember your Bible: "A day is like unto a thousand years."
So when I first asked about the conflict between "7 days" and "creation and evolution takes a bazillion years," I got a simple answer. To wit: "Everything in the Bible is literally true except where it's obviously intended as a parable or metaphor. In this case, of course God created the world in 7 days - 7 of His days. From our point of view, 7 of His days looks like a mighty long time. Don't get hung up on literalism and legalism. They are mere intellectual cudgels used in meaningless verbal battles between self-important idiots furiously engaged in competitive but highly transient mental masturbation." That always seemed reasonable to me.
God created everything in 7 days. The big bang and evolution are probably some of the tools he used to accomplish that task. Between those two statements, there is no conflict.
Is that so hard to accept?
called Ishmael. This book has so many interesting concepts and ideas... I won't even attempt to summarize in a blurb. But Ishmael talks at length about how man puts himself in a position where he(she) is at odds with the world.
I highly recommend reading this book, as it will open your eyes to some new ideas and most of all, make you think.
Take a look at amazon
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
As usual, wheneve the issue of ancient history (where ancient mean "before last Friday"), the flaming Jesus freaks emerge from their self-flagellating to inflict their disgusting morals and creation myths on rational people.
Of course we do. Whenever nonsense like this is released from another liberal brainwashing centre, then it is the duty of all concerned Christians to fight back, to show to people that the Truth of history is already out there in bookshops, churches and missions across the world!
For any truly rational person, persuing wild theories about hairy elephants and "giant lizards" is a waste of time and energy, and playing directly into the hands of the anti-humanist liberals.
Let me give you a hint: Science works. I don't need proof of that.
See how you have been brainwashed! You attack me for not having proof (despite it sitting here on my desk at work!) and then go on and claim science doesn't need any. How hypocritical of you! But then again, the Bible does warn about the hypocrites. Thankfully, they will receive their just reward.
Religion is a mind-controlling device invented by a certain Jewish huckster named Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago. 2000 years!
If you believe that, you are even more profoundly ignorant than I had thought.
There is *no* proof for any facet of creationism. Not one.
As I said before, radio halos found in granite, the decay rate of planetary magentic fields, the amount of interplanetary dust and many more. But you obviously haven't taken the time to find out these things, sure in your smug liberal ideology.
Why doesn't he open his big mouth anymore, Jon?
Why should be have to? All the evidence is already there!
Jon Erikson, IT guru
[I think this way because I believe everything I read.]
As Gas-Guzzling, Anti-Kyoto Americans, we should know this best. Ever since we handed those typhoid blankets to the land's original occupants, we have cut a swath of pollution and evil human influence across the continent.
Right now the ugliest ugly American is defending his oil-friendly policies to the more enlightened leaders of the EU. I bet they're making fun of him using words he doesn't understand. Ha.
Everyone tells me that human beings are bad for the environment, and why should I doubt them? If it weren't for us hunting the dodo to extinction, we would still be able to see that funny little bird hopping around in its non-adaptive fashion. I remember someone in a lab coat telling me that all of Nature is connected in a beautiul and delicate network. Even the macroscopic shifts in climate over the eons is probably caused by human under-arm odor or something. And since the guy was wearing a lab coat, I recommend we listen.
So, why can't we all just vanish and make the Earth pure again?
NOTICE: We will begin distributing the "magic pudding" at noon.
to accept our role? The Giant Moa (elephant bird) went extinct in New Guinea & points east about a thousand years ago - right after humans showed up.These disappearances had nothing to do with climate change. Plains Indians were hunting buffalo (sometimes) by setting fires and driving whole herds off cliffs. A great waste. They didn't pick them off one at a time by horseback until they acquired the horse from the European invaders. (The American horse had disappeared about 10000 years earlier.) You think we couldn't kill a mammoth with a pit, or a glyptodont with poison tree frog arrows? I watched a film of the Kung! of the Kalahari (bushmen) kill a giraffe with sharp sticks (and poison). This has nothing to do with "guilt" BTW; several postings have brought this up and there will be more. It's just that it's stupid, and self-destructive. A simplified biosphere is less robust. Like a cyberlandscape with only one OS available... variety is more flexible, and adaptable, and interesting. Sure, the biosystem recovered from the dinosaur extinction, but it took a coupla million years.
We are the first generation of Morlocks. Eat the rich!
The basic difference is: the early americans ate all the horses. Someplace near present-day Ukrainia, some of my ancestors learned to ride them instead, and the horse-riding peoples spread over Eurasia in waves of conquest (Celts, Hellenes, Huns, Goths, Normans, Mongols... Similarly, tameable breeds of camels, cows, sheep, goats, and donkeys were domesticated in Eurasia or Africa, but eaten in North America. The result 13,000 years later was that the europeans easily overwhelmed the native americans and took their land. Horses and a wider variety of farmable plants helped, but maybe the biggest difference was that with no tame meat animal except the dog, Indian towns had to stay small enough to allow farms nearby to grow the corn needed and the men to _walk_ to their hunting grounds, while much larger European cities were fed by cattle driven into town and grain hauled in by horse-drawn wagons. City life gave Europeans metal, gunpowder, government, large armies, measles, and smallpox, and all the Indians had to counter with was skill in the woods.
So when we drive another hundred species to extinction today, just what possible uses might we have missed?
How exactly is this +3 informative?
I know the rule about modding up stuff that adds to the discussion, and not if you necesarily agree with it, but come on, people.
I'd like to forward my own theory.
The Native Americans were beamed in here from the third moon of the planet Lothax, third planet in a star system 55 light years away. They arrived in the year 1996, but the reason why we believe they were here so much longer was that, working with the Godless Liberals, they devised a scheme where a mind-controlling memory chip was implanted in the mind of every person on earth, which contained false memories of the Native Americans being on earth for years and years. Implanted memories, like in Total Recall (where do you think Arnold got the idea from?)It's just an elaborate plan to make Honey Nut Cheerios sell better, since they are the main export of the planet Lothax.
The reason I know this is my brother's best friend's uncle's dogwalker's hairdresser used to live next door to the guy who mowed Arnold's lawn.
Do I have any other proof? Of course not.
Now lets see if this one gets modded up to +3 informative.
-Johnny 5000
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.