[sotd] Mammoth Mystery -- OnEarth Magazine [August 27, 2008]

     Site of the Day for Wednesday, August 27, 2008

     Mammoth Mystery -- OnEarth Magazine

Today's site, from the Natural Resources Defense Council's publication, 
OnEarth, presents an article by field biologist turned science writer Sharon 
Levy on the megafauna of the Pleistocene era. Gentle Subscribers will find an 
informative investigation on the controversy surrounding the extinction of 
these huge, North American animals -- the saber tooth tigers, woolly mammoths 
and their ilk. 

"Did climate change wipe out North America's giant mammals, or did our Stone 
Age ancestors hunt them to extinction? ... Conventional wisdom once held that 
rising temperatures at the end of the Ice Age caused the mass extinction of big 
Pleistocene beasts ... [but] the cause of the die-off has been hotly debated in 
a flurry of studies that look back at the vanished giants in inventive ways." - 
from the website

The report covers the work of University of Arizona's Paul Martin, who 
spearheaded the theory that the first human settlers of North America were in 
large part responsible for hunting the huge beasts to extinction. Noting the 
innovative work of paleontologists such as Guy Robinson, of Fordham University, 
the article explains new approaches to unearthing past events through an 
examination of fossil spores, microscopic charcoal specks and the half-digested 
stomach contents of these massive creatures and the theories based on these 
findings. Additional material delves into the contentious proposal of 
"Pleistocene rewilding" where lions, elephants and other large animals would be 
placed on the North American plains. 

Hop over to the site for a look at the competing theories of how these 
legendary animals vanished at:

http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06win/mammoth1.asp

A.M. Holm

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