Study Suggests Weather and Not Hunting Killed Off Wooly Mammoths

Big Hairy Ian writes, quoting the BBC: "A DNA analysis shows that the number of creatures began to decrease much earlier than previously thought as the world's climate changed. It also shows that there was a distinct population of mammoth in Europe that died out around 30,000 years ago. ... Dr Dalen worked with researchers in London to analyse DNA samples from 300 specimens from woolly mammoths collected by themselves and other groups in earlier studies ... [The researchers] speculate that it was so cold that the grass on which they fed became scarce. The decline was spurred on as the Ice Age ended, possibly because the grassland on which the creatures thrived was replaced by forests in the south and tundra in the north."

Comments

How history changes

[TWiTfan]

I remember growing up how asteroids, overpopulation, diseases, and shit like that once killed every species that ever went extinct. Now climate change did it all. It's kind of convenient, as apocalyptic boogeymen go. One causative factor to rule them all!! Saves time when we're concocting the next apocalypse.

Hey, whatever happened to nuclear apocalypse--radiation/nuclear winter/etc.? Anyone remember that one back in the 80's? Man, I'm old.

Re:How history changes

[TWiTfan]

Or you know, the scientific method was used

They must not have had that back when I was a kid. But it's good that we finally have the answer, the final truth that it was climate change that did it all. Centuries of learning have finally lead to this ultimate moment. Now future generations will only have to refine our discovery. I bet they'll look back on us thirty years from now and admire us for finally putting the matter to rest once and for all.