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Bigger kill than chill: The uneven roles of humans and climate on late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions

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Starting around 50,000 years ago, most large terrestrial animals went extinct in most continents. These extinctions have been attributed either to climatic changes, impacts of human dispersal across the world or a synergy among both. Most studies regarding these extinctions, however, have focused on particular continents or used low-resolution analyses. We used recent advances in fossil dating and past climatic models in a high-resolution quantitative analysis, comparing the explanatory power of the hypotheses at global scale. The timing of human arrival to each region was the best explanation for the extinctions. Climatic effects, where present, were additive rather than synergistic with human arrival. While climatic variation was a contributory cause that helped explaining the process, anthropogenic impacts were the necessary cause that drove it.
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Bigger kill than chill: The uneven roles of humans and climate on late
Quaternary megafaunal extinctions
Bernardo B.A. Araujo
a
,
*
, Luiz Gustavo R. Oliveira-Santos
a
,
c
, Matheus S. Lima-Ribeiro
b
,
1
,
Jos
e Alexandre F. Diniz-Filho
b
, Fernando A.S. Fernandez
a
a
Laborat
orio de Ecologia e Conservaç~
ao de Populaç~
oes, Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, C.P. 68020, Rio de Janeiro, RJ,
21941-902, Brazil
b
Laborat
orio de Ecologia Te
orica e Síntese, Universidade Federal de Goi
as, C.P. 131, Goi^
ania, GO, 74001-970, Brazil
c
Laborat
orio de Ecologia, Departamento de Ecologia, Centro de Ci^
encias Biol
ogicas, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil
Keywords:
Megafauna
Pleistocene
Holocene
Quaternary
Extinction
Human impacts
abstract
Starting around 50,000 years ago, most large terrestrial animals went extinct in most continents. These
extinctions have been attributed either to climatic changes, impacts of human dispersal across the world
or a synergy among both. Most studies regarding these extinctions, however, have focused on particular
continents or used low-resolution analyses. We used recent advances in fossil dating and past climatic
models in a high-resolution quantitative analysis, comparing the explanatory power of the hypotheses at
global scale. The timing of human arrival to each region was the best explanation for the extinctions.
Climatic effects, where present, were additive rather than synergistic with human arrival. While climatic
variation was a contributory cause that helped explaining the process, anthropogenic impacts were the
necessary cause that drove it.
©2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Since the 19th century, when science became aware of the
sudden and geologically recent disappearance of many large-
bodied animals, the late Quaternary Extinctions (LQE) have
remained a great and controversial matter (Grayson, 2008). Start-
ing around 50,000 years ago, about two thirds of all large terrestrial
animal genera went extinct in a sequence that affected most con-
tinents (Koch and Barnosky, 2006). For a long time, two main hy-
potheses eattributing these extinctions either to climatic changes
during the last glacial event or to the impacts of modern man's
dispersal across the world ehave divided the academic commu-
nity. Many researchers also came to defend a synergy between both
factors as a more plausible scenario for the extinctions (Barnosky,
2004; Nogu
es-Bravo et al., 2008; Lorenzen et al., 2011; Prescott
et al., 2012; Lima-Ribeiro and Diniz-Filho, 2013), although contro-
versies about the balance of climate and humans as extinction
drivers still remain (Lima-Ribeiro et al., 2012; Prescott et al., 2012).
The late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions were a global
phenomenon and we believe that a global approach is the best way
to understand causal mechanisms. This would bring the full range
of temporal and geographical variation in extinction times to bear,
allowing one to disentangle the overall signal from regional trends.
Most studies, however, have focused on particular continents and
taxa (e.g. Alroy, 2001; Diniz-Filho, 2004; Johnson, 2006; Nogu
es-
Bravo et al., 2008). A few global analyses have been presented
(Lyons et al., 2004; Gillespie, 2008; Prescott et al., 2012; Sandom
et al., 2014); but innovative and insightful as these studies have
been, they carry some problems. While some works lack quanti-
tative analyses of the proposed extinction causes (e.g. Lyons et al.,
2004; Gillespie, 2008), others are based on crude and often unre-
alistic scenarios of human arrival and megafaunal extinction
(Prescott et al., 2012; see Lima-Ribeiro et al., 2012 for details). Both
Prescott et al. (2012) and Sandom et al. (2014) include non-
quantitative variables in their models, as their hominin paleoge-
ography variable is based on discrete human arrival scenarios. The
most recent global analysis (Sandom et al., 2014) is based on global
databases on extinct (and extant) mammals' distributions that are
bound to be incomplete and/or to contain a proportion of un-
trustworthy data (as shown by the inclusion on the analysis
of Africa and Southern Asia, regions with poor paleontological
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: araujo.bernardo@yahoo.com.br (B.B.A. Araujo).
1
Laborat
orio de Macroecologia, Universidade Federal de Goi
as, Campus Jataí,
75804-020, Jataí, GO, Brazil.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Quaternary International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.045
1040-6182/©2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
Quaternary International 431 (2017) 216e222
records). Additionally, their approach lacks a comparison of
extinction dates with human arrival and climatic change focused on
chronology (rather than geography).
Fossil dating allows the establishment of synchrony between
extinction events and their potential drivers. In the last years, a
growing number of dates have been published and reviewed
around the world (see Supplementary References). Improved cli-
matic models have been developed for the last 122,500 years
(Andersen et al., 2004). These advances made a once unfeasible
chronological global analysis of climatic changes, human arrival to
each region and extinction of megafaunal taxa a concrete possi-
bility, opening a promising path for resolving the extinction debate.
In light of these new chronometric advances, we performed an
exhaustive gathering of data for human rst appearance dates
(HFADs) and last appearance of megafaunal genera (MLADs) on
nineteen regions across the globe, together with climatic variation
through the late Quaternary, to provide the rst high-resolution
chronological analysis of the LQE extinctions. We tested the hy-
potheses that human arrival or climate variance would be
responsible for the extinction of megafaunal genera. This more
detailed approach should advance the extinction debate, providing
the rst quantitative chronological test of the roles of anthropo-
genic impacts and climatic variation on the demise of the world's
megafauna.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Data
The predictions of both hypotheses were compared in order to
evaluate them. The environmental hypothesis predicts that ex-
tinctions would have occurred during or following intense climatic
changes through the late Quaternary. The human impact hypoth-
esis, on the other hand, predicts that extinctions would have fol-
lowed human colonization of each landmass across the planet.
First, last appearance dates of megafauna (MLADs) species and
rst appearance dates of anatomically modern humans (HFADs)
on several landmasses were gathered from all published scientic
sources that could be assessed (see Supplementary Tables 1 and
2). These landmasses included South America, North America,
Caribbean islands, Northern and Western Eurasia, Australia, Tas-
mania, Madagascar, New Zealand and Japan. Climate variation in
the North hemisphere through the last millennia of the Quater-
nary was assessed by the North Greenland Ice Core Project
(NGRIP) data on the variation of oxygen isotopic composition in
ice cores (Andersen et al., 2004). This database comprises
d
18
O
data from the last 122,500 years, with
18
O values for every 50
years. For the South hemisphere we used the European Project for
Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) database, which comprises data
on the variation of deuterium concentrations (
d
2
H) at irregular
but frequent intervals along the last 800,0 00 years. We used EPICA
data for the last 122,500 years only, to cover an interval similar to
the one provided by NGRIP. Both
d
18
Oand
d
2
H are proxies for
temperature conditions for their respective hemispheres. Their
use in our analysis assumes that although changes along the
glacial cycle differed among regions, times of intense global
temperature variation within each hemisphere would be reected
as regional changes of increased magnitude (Walker, 2005). We
opted for this approach, instead of assuming any ner regionali-
zation, because actual global reconstructions of past climatic
conditions are few and punctual across time, and do not neces-
sarily reect periods when megafaunal extinctions took place.
Environmental proxies with high spatial resolution, including
phytophysiognomical reconstructions based on pollen data, are
available for just a few regions across the world, which precludes
their use in global models (Gill et al., 2009, 2013; Rule et al., 2012).
Considering such limitations, we believe that high-resolution
chronological data for each hemisphere can be more informative
than a crude and possibly misleading interpolation of past cli-
matic scenarios in a geological period when climate undergone
many rapid changes.
To allow comparisons between the hypotheses' predictions,
data reliability was assessed through a scoring system. Paleonto-
logical and archaeological dates are sensitive to methodological
errors (Walker, 2005). Sample contamination, poor materials,
stratigraphic misinterpretations, inadequate dating methods and
other problems can seriously jeopardize a date's accuracy. To
identify reliable data, many authors have used different quanti-
tative scales based mainly on sample material, stratigraphic as-
sociations and the type of equipment and logistics used in a given
study (Mead an d Meltzer, 1984;Burney et al., 2004; Barnosky and
Lindsey, 2010; Iwase et al., 2012). Dates from articles and books
that passed through such scrutiny were collected without further
appraisal. In most cases, however, dates lacked any sort of accu-
racy determination, making data ltering a necessity. For radio-
carbon based dates, this ltering was achieved using the Mead-
Meltzer Scale (Mead and Meltzer, 1984)modied by Barnosky
and Lindsey (2010), applying strict criteria: for paleontological
and archaeological dates to be accepted, they had to reach at least
ranks 11 (out of a maximum rank of 12) and 13 (out of a maximum
rank of 17) respectively (following Barnosky and Lindsey, 2010).
Still, most datings performed in Oceania over the extinctions
period are based on different methods, mainly U/Th (Uraniume-
Thorium dating), OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating)
and ESR (Electron Spin Resonance dating). As there are no scoring
systems capable of evaluating the accuracy of dates obtained by
these methods, ranked scales along the lines of the Mead-Meltzer
Scale were designed to assess the reliability of U/Th and OSL dates
(Supplementary Table 3). The new scales do not include ranks
associated with archaeological remains, because human dates
were always based on radiocarbon methods. ESR dating involves a
more complex set of techniques, making its dates harder to tinto
a simple scoring system. So, only sources that utilized CSUS-ESR
(Closed System U-Series ESR), a more accurate variant of the
ESR method, were considered in the following analyses (Grün
et al., 2008, 2010).
After the data ltering, date calibration was performed. Radio-
carbon datings are based on the
14
C/
12
C ratio of tested samples; as
base concentrations of both isotopes uctuate through time in the
atmosphere, calibration is necessary to transform radiocarbon
yearson actual years before present. Dates were calibrated using
the software Calib 6.0, using the IntCal09 curve for every sample.
Even though this calibration curve was originally designed for the
northern hemisphere, it is the only one that encompasses the
whole span of the extinction event.
As a last precaution, we tested bootstrapping corrections over
the paleontological dates of South America (using the Cueva del
Milodon, in Argentina, as the well sampled site) to avoid possible
biases caused by the Signor-Lipps effect, following the methodol-
ogy established by Barnosky and Lindsey (2010). This method has
been criticized by Johnson et al. (2013) for not accounting
adequately for the uncertainties and biases that affect the estima-
tion of MLAD and HFAD. Regarding the nature of the expected bias,
using uncorrected MLAD and HFAD would underestimate the
coexistence between humans and megafauna. Anyway, the use of
corrected data did not signicantly affect the results, thus we opted
for using uncorrected data to perform all analyses described in the
following section, keeping in mind that this could make our ana-
lyses conservative against nding an association between human
arrival and megafaunal extinction.
B.B.A. Araujo et al. / Quaternary International 431 (2017) 216e222 217
2.2. Statistical analysis
All analyses were based on genera rather than species to avoid
taxonomical noise, because fossils are not always identied to the
specic level or such identications are often controversial. As both
times of megafauna extinctions and human colonization vary
considerably within large landmasses, the world was divided into
19 regions. These divisions were based mainly on great geograph-
ical barriers (e.g. Andes, Ural Mountains etc.) and temporal gaps on
human arrival (e.g. Mediterranean vs. northern Europe, islands vs.
adjacent landmasses) (Fig. 1). The time of human arrival was set by
the HFADs in each region, whereas the time of extinctions was set
by the MLADs of each megafaunal genus. The climate changes were
estimated based on
d
18
O and
d
2
H, as proxies for temperature
variation for the North and the South hemisphere respectively, as
described above. Finally, the relative importance of human arrival
and climate changes on LQE was assessed in two ways.
First, we created two sets of null models, one of climate changes
and another of human arrival, to investigate the chronological as-
sociation of periods of intense climatic change and of HFADs with
the MLADs. For the each hypothesis, a thousand dates were
randomly drawn from the 122,500 years of climatic data available
for each extinct genus on each region. In respect to the climatic
hypothesis, each true last appearance date had the
18
Oor
2
H vari-
ance calculated for the time interval comprising its dating error
plus another thousand years into the past. This same time span
(true dating error plus a thousand years) was used to calculate the
18
Oor
2
H variance of all generated random dates. This step assumes
that the effects of climatic changes on regional megafaunal ex-
tinctions would be apparent within a 1000 years interval; this we
regard as a conservative approach to accommodate a delayed
response by the extinct genera. Anyhow, we repeated this proce-
dure using 3000 years intervals and the results remained almost
unaltered. We then estimated the level of signicance of climatic
Fig. 1. (A) The diaspora of modern man through the planet, showing the 19 regions in which the world wasdivided for this study. Arrows indicate the approximate direction of each
major colonization event. (B) The extinction of megafaunal genera at different parts of the world, according to calibrated reliable dates. Points are slightly jittered to minimize
overlap. The color scales indicate the timing of human arrival and extinctions in each place, from the oldest (cold colors) to the most recent (hot colors).
B.B.A. Araujo et al. / Quaternary International 431 (2017) 216e222218
effects on each megafaunal genus in each region by considering the
proportion of random variances equal to or greater than that based
on true MLADs. This metric of climatic instability was chosen as the
environmental variable rather than extreme values because there is
only a single apex to the last glaciation(or two, if the Younger Dryas
is considered), thus climatic variance would be a better candidate
than climatic extremes as a predictor for the extinctions.
A similar method was employed to assess the second hypoth-
esis, only this time the chronological distance between each date
(random or true) and the corresponding regional HFAD was
measured. We then estimated the level of signicance of anthro-
pogenic effect on each megafaunal genus in each region by
considering the proportion of random chronological distances
equal to or lesser than that based on true dates. On every occasion
where the climatic or anthropogenic effects were statistically sig-
nicant ei.e. when extinctions were more closely related to cli-
matic changes or to human arrival than expected by chance ethat
specic cause was considered responsible for the extinction of a
given megafauna genus. When both hypotheses showed signicant
p-values, the result was considered entangled, meaning that the
models could not discern between causes for that particular
extinction event.
In a second approach, we used a generalized linear mixed model
(GLMM) to test, in a single model, the effects of both climate
changes and human arrival (xed effects) on the extinction rates of
megafauna genera, as well as the effect of the interaction between
these hypothesized explanatory variables. As somegenera survived
several millennia after most of their concurrent taxa, to avoid ef-
fects of time-lags between the change of state of a given variable
(human arrival or climatic instability) and total megafaunal demise
within a region, 25% of the most recent extinction dates from every
region were removed from the generalized linear mixed models.
Within each region, the last 60 thousand years of data were divided
into bins of 41 different sizes, ranging from 1000 to 5000 years with
100 year increments. The number of extinct genera recorded in
each bin was obtained; therefore bins were our sample units. The
use of bins of different sizes allowed us to evaluate the robustness
of the results to variations in size, which is an arbitrary choice. The
time since human arrived in each region (the rst explanatory
variable) was measured as the amount of years from the beginning
of each bin to the true HFAD on that region. The climate change (the
second explanatory variable) was quantied as
18
Oor
2
H variance
within each bin.
The GLMM models were tted using a Poisson distribution
because the number of extinct genera in each bin is a typical
discrete count variable. The regions' identities were included in the
models as random effects (allowing random intercept estimation)
and temporal autocorrelation was controlled between successive
bins within each region using a rst-order autoregressive correla-
tion structure. The models were validated through the checking of
both normality and absence of temporal autocorrelation of the
residuals. The GLMM and null models were run in R software (R
Core Team, 2012) by using the function glmmPQL from the pack-
age MASS (Venables and Ripley, 2002).
3. Results
A total of 2088 dates for 67 genera of extinct megafauna (58
mammals, 8 birds and 1 reptile) were considered reliable, totalizing
126 independent sampling units across 19 regions (Supplementary
Table 1). Similarly, 762 human dates fullled the reliability re-
quirements, and were used in the analyses (Supplementary
Table 2).
Null models showed that most extinctions (85/126, or 67.4%;
Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 4) took place around the time of
human arrival in each region, as it can be seen by the close temporal
gap between high-resolution MLADs and HFADs across the globe.
This pattern emerged despite the use of uncorrected dates, which
would underestimate the coexistence between humans and
megafauna. A similar correlation of extinction dates with times of
intense climatic variation did not occur: only 17.5% (22/126) of the
MLADs happened in periods of intense
18
Oor
2
Huctuation.
Among these, only 1.6% (2/126) genera disappeared in periods
linked only to great climatic variance, and not to human arrival. On
the other hand, 65 (51.6%) were closer than expected by chance
only to human arrival. Twenty cases (15.9%) were associated to both
events (entangled). In the remaining 39 cases no association could
be found.
Forty one GLMM models were generated encompassing the
range of time bins between 1000 and 5000 years. If either tem-
perature proxy were used to represent climatic variation for the
whole planet, Antarctic
2
H detected a stronger climatic effect than
Greenlandic
18
O, but human arrival had the strongest effect in both
cases (see Supplementary Table 5). Adopting our approach of using
each proxy to represent climatic variation in its own hemisphere,
the time of most intense climatic variation was signicantly related
to the extinction of megafauna in only 1 of the 41 bins. In sharp
contrast, the date of human arrival was the best predictor of the
extinction of megafauna, with a signicant effect in 40 of the 41
bins. These models had an average R
2
of 0.525. In the models
considering the interaction between both factors, the interaction
term was signicant in only 4 of the 41 bins (Supplementary
Table 5). Thus GLMM provided stronger evidence for anthropo-
genic than for climatic effects, and little evidence of a synergistic
action of the two factors.
4. Discussion
Overall, our results indicate that human arrival was a necessary
factor for the extinctions, whereas climate variation was a
contributory one, enhancing regionally the effects of anthropogenic
impacts in additive rather than synergistic ways. This conclusion
builds upon the previous ndings of the previous global analyses by
Prescott et al. (2012) and Sandom et al. (2014), but it rests on a ner
data base and it claries the causal relation between the two fac-
tors. The fact that Africa escaped the strong global extinction
pattern reinforces the interpretation of human-driven causes
because there the necessary cause was missing (Klein, 1984): one
would expect stronger anthropogenic impacts in rst contacts with
faunas without any previous evolutionary contact with Homo sa-
piens (Diamond, 1984). Besides, the interpretation that climate
variation was not a necessary cause for the massive LQE is consis-
tent with the pattern that the Pleistocene accommodated over 30
glacial cycles, many as intense as the Last Glacial Maximum
(Barnosky, 2004; Walker, 2005), all of them with few or no asso-
ciated extinctions (Cione et al., 2003; Barnosky, 2004). It has been
argued that the last glacial cycle would have had a greater variance
of temperature than earlier glacial periods eat least in maximum,
rather than the minimum, temperature ein Sahul (Wroe et al.,
2013), but globally climatic variance was not a strong extinction
predictor in our results.
In relation to previous global analyses, our ndings clarify
regional differences, highlighting the limitations of single-
continent studies to make inferences about the causes of the
global process of LQE. For example, while the anthropogenic signal
was straightforward for Australia and the Americas, strong regional
patterns can be observed when northern Eurasia (except Bering) is
viewed apart from the world. In the sampling units within West
Siberia, Central Russia, Japan and Europe, only two of 28 (7%) ex-
tinctions were associated to human arrival and another two
B.B.A. Araujo et al. / Quaternary International 431 (2017) 216e222 219
extinctions (7%) to climatic variation (the only ones in the analysis),
leaving 24 cases unexplained. On Eurasia, extinctions covered a
longer period than anywhere else, encompassing MLADs from 40 to
10 thousand years ago. Therefore, most of them could not be
explained by cold temperature peaks of the LGM or any stadials.
The colonization of Eurasia was the only moment in human
dispersal when paleolithic humans euntil then, a fully tropical
species ewere forced to move against increasingly colder envi-
ronments as they expanded their populations toward high lati-
tudes. The HFADs from Central Russia and Europe are over 45
thousand years old, about 30 thousand years older than those from
Bering and almost 20 thousand years older than the rst human
Fig. 2. Geographic distribution of the results of the null model investigating the effects of two factors on megafaunal extinctions across the world. P-values in red show cases were
extinctions happened in (a) periods of high climatic variation as expressed by
18
Oor
2
H concentrations in ice cores and (b) closer than expected by chance to human arrival dates.
Histograms show the distribution of p-values under the two hypotheses. The lower image (c) shows the geographical distribution of cases where the extinctions were better
explained by climatic variations, human arrival, both factors (entangled) and none. Points are slightly jittered to minimize overlap.
B.B.A. Araujo et al. / Quaternary International 431 (2017) 216e222220
dates across the arctic (Pitulko et al., 2004). Accordingly, Surovell
et al. (2009), after correcting for taphonomic bias, found evidence
that mammoths suffered a long process of decline toward extinc-
tion, correlated to increased human densities. Thus, the long pro-
cess of peopling northern Eurasia against the cold gradient may
have allowed a greater temporal gap between HFADs and MLADs,
generating a weaker signal in the null model.
Another possible explanation for why extinctions were slower
in Eurasia is the coexistence of megafauna with early Homo for
several thousand years prior to the arrival of modern humans
(Sandom et al., 2014). H.heidelbergensis and H.neanderthalensis had
been present there for hundreds of thousands of years before the
diaspora of modern humans to Eurasia (Stringer and Andrews,
2005). So, as in Africa, coevolution possibly granted the large ani-
mals a greater resilience to hunting by H.sapiens. One must keep in
mind that the true baseline for the behavior of megafauna at rst
contact with hominids is more likely to be represented by the is-
land naivetyrecorded for vertebrates in historical rst contacts
than by modern behavior of animals that have coexisted with
humans for millennia (Diamond, 1984).
Our work is based on few assumptions, including that biological
impacts of climatic variation would be apparent within one to ve
thousand year intervals (see Materials and methods), and that
humans had signicant interactions with the megafauna. Some
authors have questioned the latter assumption, arguing that co-
incidences of HFADs and MLADs are not enough to establish cau-
sality, and that direct evidence that humans hunted megafauna is
scarce (Grayson and Meltzer, 2003). However, the extinct species
were the demographically most vulnerable ones (Johnson, 2002,
2006), and the frequency and geographical distribution of the
existing humanemegafauna associations are consistent with the
expected given the short coexistence between H.sapiens and large
animals in any given locality (Barnosky, 2004; Surovell and Grund,
2012).
5. Conclusion
The present study allowed a widened quantitative perspective
on the relative roles of climate variation and human impacts in the
LQE, with human impacts as a much stronger determinant of the
number of extinct genera than climate variance. The extinction of
hundreds of species across the whole planet is such a complex
process that one could hardly expect a single factor to completely
explain every aspect of it. It is highly likely that causal factors like
human impacts and climate changes both acted, in different ways
in different places, to produce the nal outcome, as our ndings
highlight. However, as recent analyses are making increasingly
clear, this does not necessarily mean that both factors had equal
importance. Many Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions
occurred in the absence of any relevant climatic change, but
seldom, if ever, they occurred independently from human arrival.
Thus, climatic variations were a contributory cause, which some-
times helped determining where and which species went extinct,
while anthropogenic impacts were the necessary cause, without
which probably nobody would be talking today about the extinc-
tion of the megafauna.
Acknowledgements
We thank Joaquín Hortal, Leonardo
Avila, Leopoldo Solbeizon,
the late Paul S. Martin, the members of the Laborat
orio de Ecologia
e Conservaç~
ao de Populaç~
oes eUFRJ and the members of the First
Peopling of the Americas UNESCO Symposium at Puebla for dis-
cussions. We also thank Caio Kenup for his help with R program-
ming, and Chris Johnson for his constructive commentaries on the
manuscript. All authors except M.S.L.-R. were supported by per-
sonal grants from CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Cientíco e Tecnol
ogico eBrazil) during this research; M.S.L.-R.
received a graduated fellowship from FAPEG (Fundaç~
ao de
Amparo
a Pesquisa do Estado de Goi
as).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.045.
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... Previous studies investigating human expansion have thus far relied either on archaeological evidence 20,[27][28][29] or mitochondrial/wholegenome data 11,13,30 . However, these data are often sparse and incomplete, and population turnover can erase ancestral genetic signals. ...
... We must also consider the possibility that the earliest settlers might not have contributed to the gene pool 31,32 , thus making the reconstruction of regional patterns of human expansion challenging when independent datasets are viewed in isolation. The lack of spatially and temporally continuous data has restricted testing hypotheses regarding environmental drivers of human expansion to qualitative scenarios that are often difficult to apply at continental scales 27,33,34 . The main problem is that even reliably dated and comprehensive archaeological evidence is unlikely to reflect the true timing of human arrival in an area due to a bias introduced by incomplete sampling or taphonomy 35 . ...
... Our framework builds on the strength of each discipline while overcoming their inherent limitations to test scenarios that would not be possible to evaluate by relying solely on sparse and incomplete 'snapshot' data of local and spatially isolated events. Moreover, our statistical approach to infer spatio-temporal trajectories of initial human expansion overcomes the methodological limitations of most previous contributions in this area such as: (i) the under-representation of older arrival events 74 and the Signor-Lipps effect 35 , (ii) either not spatially explicit 75 , or (iii) generating new spatial biases via arbitrary geographic binning 27,76,77 , or when interpolating a linear chronology from unevenly spaced age estimates 78 , and/or (iv) neglecting uncertainty arising from sampling and taphonomic biases 79 , and inherent dating errors 80 . Our results support, at least at broad spatial scales, that the decisions of our early ancestors to penetrate unknown lands would have been driven by suitable environmental conditions. ...
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The ability of our ancestors to switch food sources and to migrate to more favourable environments enabled the rapid global expansion of anatomically modern humans beyond Africa as early as 120,000 years ago. Whether this versatility was largely the result of environmentally determined processes or was instead dominated by cultural drivers, social structures, and interactions among different groups, is unclear. We develop a statistical approach that combines both archaeological and genetic data to infer the more-likely initial expansion routes in northern Eurasia and the Americas. We then quantify the main differences in past environmental conditions between the more-likely routes and other potential (less-likely) routes of expansion. We establish that, even though cultural drivers remain plausible at finer scales, the emergent migration corridors were predominantly constrained by a combination of regional environmental conditions, including the presence of a forest-grassland ecotone, changes in temperature and precipitation, and proximity to rivers.
... Explanations for the global extinction of hundreds of large terrestrial species during the late Quaternary [1] have matured from relying on simple binary drivers to a more nuanced demonstration of synergistic mechanisms varying across taxa and regions [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. However, temporal variation in species composition inferred from the zooarchaeological record is still often attributed either to (i) changing environmental conditions altering natural abundances, (ii) humans depleting populations through subsistence offtake, or (iii) a combination of the two [10][11][12][13]. ...
... ka), followed by a ~1.4℃ decline during the Younger Dryas, and then a ~2.0℃ rise by 10 ka (figure 1). With increasing evidence for extinction synergies [86] between human over-exploitation and environmental change in the demise of late Quaternary megafauna extinctions [2][3][4][5][6][7][8], such simultaneous temperature and precipitation fluctuations could have exacerbated the extinction risk of both dwarf hippopotamus and elephants in Cyprus. Indeed, there is evidence for human-and climate-mediated collapse of ecological networks in ancient Egypt [87], and Saltré et al. [8] concluded that combinations of aridification and human presence contributed to the local extinction of many megafauna species in Sahul. ...
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The hypothesized main drivers of megafauna extinctions in the late Quaternary have wavered between over-exploitation by humans and environmental change, with recent investigations demonstrating more nuanced synergies between these drivers depending on taxon, spatial scale, and region. However, most studies still rely on comparing archaeologically based chronologies of timing of initial human arrival into naïve ecosystems and palaeontologically inferred dates of megafauna extinctions. Conclusions arising from comparing chronologies also depend on the reliability of dated evidence, dating uncertainties, and correcting for the low probability of preservation (Signor–Lipps effect). While some models have been developed to test the susceptibility of megafauna to theoretical offtake rates, none has explicitly linked human energetic needs, prey choice, and hunting efficiency to examine the plausibility of human-driven extinctions. Using the island of Cyprus in the terminal Pleistocene as an ideal test case because of its late human settlement (~14.2–13.2 ka), small area (~11 000 km²), and low megafauna diversity (2 species), we developed stochastic models of megafauna population dynamics, with offtake dictated by human energetic requirements, prey choice, and hunting-efficiency functions to test whether the human population at the end of the Pleistocene could have caused the extinction of dwarf hippopotamus (Phanourios minor) and dwarf elephants (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes). Our models reveal not only that the estimated human population sizes (n = 3000–7000) in Late Pleistocene Cyprus could have easily driven both species to extinction within < 1000 years, the model predictions match the observed, Signor–Lipps-corrected chronological sequence of megafauna extinctions inferred from the palaeontological record (P. minor at ~12–11.1 ka, followed by P. cypriotes at ~10.3–9.1 ka).
... Particularly in Patagonia, interactions of human populations with diverse animal and plant species can be traced back to the end of the Late Pleistocene, at least 13,000 years ago, with direct and indirect effects of variable magnitude. The dispersion of modern humans within the region is thought to have played a significant role in the massive Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions (Koch and Barnosky 2006;Araujo et al. 2017;Pires et al. 2020;Prates and Perez 2021). The guanaco was the largest herbivore surviving this event (Franklin 1982;Cione et al. 2009;Pires et al. 2020;Novaro and Walker 2021), despite being the principal prey of hunter-gatherers in the region (Mengoni Go ñalons 1999;Miotti and Salemme 1999;Rindel 2017;Moscardi et al. 2020Moscardi et al. , 2022. ...
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Context The guanaco (Lama guanicoe) is one of the four species of South American camels, and is the largest native mammal inhabiting arid and semi-arid environments in South America. Although the guanaco was abundant and widely distributed in the past, currently its density and distribution range are substantially reduced, inhabiting mainly Southern Patagonia in small isolated groups. The decline in guanaco populations is most likely related to the Anthropocene defaunation process that is affecting large mammals in developing countries worldwide, but the extent and causes of these changes are not well understood. Aims To explore both the changes in the distribution of guanaco populations in Northwest Patagonia and the environmental and anthropic factors that shaped the distribution patterns, by employing a long-term perspective spanning from the end of the Late Holocene to present times (i.e. the last 2500 years). Methods We combine archaeological information, ethnohistorical records and current observations and apply Species Distribution Models using bioclimatic and anthropic factors as explanatory variables. Key results Guanaco spatial distribution in Northwest Patagonia changed significantly throughout time. This change consisted in the displacement of the species towards the east of the region and its disappearance from northwest Neuquén and southwest Mendoza in the last 30 years. In particular, the high-density urban settlements and roads, and secondly, competition with ovicaprine livestock (goats and sheep) for forage are the main factors explaining the change in guanaco distribution. Conclusions Guanaco and human populations co-existed in the same areas during the Late Holocene and historic times (16th to 19th centuries), but during the 20th century the modern anthropic impact generated a spatial dissociation between both species, pushing guanaco populations to drier and more unproductive areas that were previously peripheral in its distribution. Implications As with many other large mammal species in developing countries, Northwest Patagonia guanaco populations are undergoing significant changes in their range due to modern anthropic activities. Considering that these events are directly related to population declines and extirpations, together with the striking low density recorded for Northwest Patagonia guanaco populations, urgent management actions are needed to mitigate current human impacts.
... Human hunting features selection for larger-sized prey, potentially uniquely among pressures reducing populations, so even with low rates of hunting humans could have driven mammal species to extinction (Alroy 2001, Brook & Johnson 2006, Ben-Dor & Barkai 2021. Multiple recent studies have concluded that human migration and growing population density are the most likely cause for megafaunal extinction (Koch & Barnosky 2006, Prescott et al. 2012, Sandom et al. 2014, Saltré et al. 2016, Araujo et al. 2017, Andermann et al. 2020. These migrations occurred concurrent with climatic changes, which also contributed to extinction risk, particularly during the last deglaciation, when rapid temperature changes were linked to mammalian extinctions at least in Europe (Cooper et al. 2015, Wan & Zhang 2017. ...
... The modern human fingerprint in ecosystems through species extinctions and geographical redistribution has been pervasive since our lineage spread out of Africa (Boivin et al., 2016). Early humans contributed to precipitate the extermination of Pleistocene megafauna in several continents (Araujo et al., 2015;Barnosky et al., 2004;Dembitzer et al., 2022;Sandom et al., 2014), and we are currently driving an alarming biodiversity global crisis (Barnosky et al., 2012;Dirzo et al., 2014). Since the rise of agriculture and domestication, especially in historical times, there are numerous examples of human-caused reshaping of the distribution range of both domestic (Diamond, 2002;Zeder, 2008) and wild species (Davies, 2009;Lockwood et al., 2013). ...
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Modern humans widely shaped present ecosystems through intentional and unintentional geographical redistribution of wildlife, both in historical and pre‐historical times. However, the patterns of ancient human‐mediated indirect changes in wildlife range are largely unknown, and the mechanisms behind them remain obscure. We used a multidisciplinary approach to (a) reconstruct the process of colonization of the Mediterranean Basin by a long‐lived bird of prey, the Bonelli's eagle (Aquila fasciata), and (b) test the hypothesis that this colonization was unintentionally favoured by anatomically modern humans through a release of competition by dominant species, primarily golden eagles (A. chrysaetos). The fossil record of Bonelli's eagles in the Mediterranean Basin was restricted to the last c. 50 ky. This timing matches the period of modern human presence in Europe. Distribution modelling showed that Bonelli's eagles find more suitable conditions in interglacial periods, while glacial maxima are largely unfavourable unless in coastal refugia. In agreement with this, all Bonelli's eagle's fossils were found in coastal areas, and demographic inference from genetic data revealed a drop in the effective population size by around the last glacial maximum. In today's communities, we found a strongly asymmetric competitive relationship between (subordinate) Bonelli's and (dominant) golden eagles, with the former occupying far more humanized areas than the latter both at the landscape scale and the local (i.e. nesting cliff) scale. Moreover, the nesting habitat overlap analysis indicated that, in the absence of the other species, a notably higher population of Bonelli's eagle, but not of golden eagle, could be expected. Our findings are consistent with the human‐mediated competitor release hypothesis, by which anatomically modern humans could have unintentionally favoured the large‐scale colonization by Bonelli's eagles of a previously competitively hostile Mediterranean Basin. Reconstructing the role of ancient humans in shaping present ecosystems may help to understand the historical, current and future population trajectories of competing species of conservation concern under the ongoing scenario of global environmental change. It also illustrates how human‐mediated apparent competition may promote large‐scale redistribution and colonization of wildlife, including long‐lived species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
... This contrasts with the much longer period of hominin-megafauna coevolution in Africa and Eurasia (Stiner 2002). These patterns are therefore consistent with a human cause of the extinctions (Martin 1967, Sandom et al. 2014, Saltré et al. 2016, Araujo et al. 2017. ...
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The causes of megafauna extinction in the late Quaternary have long been a controversial subject, which may be related to the limitations of adequate information to evaluate global hypotheses related to climate change and the impacts of modern human dispersal. We propose a new global spatio-temporal approach using variations of Earth's orbital parameters and atmospheric CO2 levels as forcing factors for environmental and climate change with worldwide distribution. We analysed the overlap between 142 times-of-extinction of megafauna, and high obliquity (as a forcing factor for seasonality), low atmospheric CO2 levels (as a forcing factor for desertification), and the arrival of modern humans. We found that critical periods of seasonality and desertification intensified in the last 800 ka BP, and made the last 50 ka BP exceptionally severe in relation to the entire Quaternary. These critical periods significantly overlapped with 87% of extinctions in continental and connected islands, compared with 32.1% overlap of extinctions with the arrival of modern humans. In contrast the arrival of modern humans on isolated islands overlapped with 90.9% of the extinctions. The arrival of modern humans in continental regions had 81.3% of overlap with critical periods of climate change, suggesting that the synchrony observed between extinctions and the dispersal of modern humans in continental regions was driven by climate.
Chapter
In this chapter, we look at the other side, the cases where the rules have become exceptions. The factors responsible for these changes are diverse. Let us consider, for example, those changes produced by nature itself, where certain characters, behaviors, and even interactions that were previously very common became rare or even disappeared; changes associated with climatic relics, relict species, up to major extinction events. Let us also think of the changes that humans have made in nature that are responsible for certain rules becoming exceptions, the effects of artificial selection, deforestation, species introduced into environments that are not natural, and of course the climate change in which we are major participants, to name just a few examples. Additionally, the changes from rules to exceptions can result from changes in scientific interpretations, such as biases in study approaches, biases in the choice of model species for research, and their general extrapolation of results without, in many cases, the necessary precautions, in addition to the biases in interpretations associated with the use of certain current equipment and methodologies.
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Across the last ~50,000 years (the late Quaternary) terrestrial vertebrate faunas have experienced severe losses of large species (megafauna), with most extinctions occurring in the Late Pleistocene and Early to Middle Holocene. Debate on the causes has been ongoing for over 200 years, intensifying from the 1960s onward. Here, we outline criteria that any causal hypothesis needs to account for. Importantly, this extinction event is unique relative to other Cenozoic (the last 66 million years) extinctions in its strong size bias. For example, only 11 out of 57 species of megaherbivores (body mass ≥1,000 kg) survived to the present. In addition to mammalian megafauna, certain other groups also experienced substantial extinctions, mainly large non-mammalian vertebrates and smaller but megafauna-associated taxa. Further, extinction severity and dates varied among continents, but severely affected all biomes, from the Arctic to the tropics. We synthesise the evidence for and against climatic or modern human (Homo sapiens) causation, the only existing tenable hypotheses. Our review shows that there is little support for any major influence of climate, neither in global extinction patterns nor in fine-scale spatiotemporal and mechanistic evidence. Conversely, there is strong and increasing support for human pressures as the key driver of these extinctions, with emerging evidence for an initial onset linked to pre-sapiens hominins prior to the Late Pleistocene. Subsequently, we synthesize the evidence for ecosystem consequences of megafauna extinctions and discuss the implications for conservation and restoration. A broad range of evidence indicates that the megafauna extinctions have elicited profound changes to ecosystem structure and functioning. The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions thereby represent an early, large-scale human-driven environmental transformation, constituting a progenitor of the Anthropocene, where humans are now a major player in planetary functioning. Finally, we conclude that megafauna restoration via trophic rewilding can be expected to have positive effects on biodiversity across varied Anthropocene settings.
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Examines 14C data in an attempt to resolve whether extinctions were synchronous or gradual. Results are inconclusive and concludes that current knowledge does not support either the climatic or the overkill hypothesis. Also evidence from 14C needs to be coupled with evidence relating to population dynamics, change and collapse, and the whole embedded in a viable and testable theory. -T.M.Kennard
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Numerous anthropological and ecological hypotheses have been proposed to explain the extinction of many large-bodied mammals at the terminal Pleistocene. We find that body size distributions of all mammals in North America, South America, Africa and Australia before and after the late Pleistocene show a similar large-size selectivity of extinctions across con- tinents, despite differences in timing. All extinctions coincide with the colonization of the continent by aboriginal man, but only two coincide with periods of climate change. Further, historical (within the last 300 years) extinctions in Australia demonstrate a higher susceptibility of small and medium-sized mammals. On all four continents, large-bodied Recent mammals are threatened by human hunting practices, whereas small-bodied species are not. We conclude that the late Pleistocene extinctions were caused primarily by anthropogenic factors such as human hunting, whereas historical extinctions were due mostly to habitat alteration and exotic species introductions.
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The overkill hypothesis has been criticized using a simple observation— with the exception of New Zealand, there is little evidence for human hunting of extinct Quaternary faunas. We explore the legitimacy of this argument, or what we call the “Associational Critique,” the idea that the paucity of evidence for the subsistence exploitation of extinct taxa weakens or falsifies overkill. Using quantitative and probabilistic models, based on the temporal depth of extinction events, human demography, and taphonomic bias, we ask how many associations with extinct fauna should have been found by this point in time in Australia, North America, and New Zealand. We conclude that such evidence should be rare in Australia, of intermediate abundance in North America, and common in New Zealand, a conclusion very much in accord with the current state of the archaeological record. We reach a similar conclusion using an analysis of the relative frequency of radiocarbon dates from each region dating to the time of coexistence of humans and extinct fauna. We argue that a scarcity of evidence for the exploitation of extinct fauna is not only consistent with overkill but also nearly every other extinction hypothesis that has been proposed, thus rendering the Associational Critique irrelevant.
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The late Quaternary megafauna extinction was a severe global-scale event. Two factors, climate change and modern humans, have received broad support as the primary drivers, but their absolute and relative importance remains controversial. To date, focus has been on the extinction chronology of individual or small groups of species, specific geographical regions or macroscale studies at very coarse geographical and taxonomic resolution, limiting the possibility of adequately testing the proposed hypotheses. We present, to our knowledge, the first global analysis of this extinction based on comprehensive country-level data on the geographical distribution of all large mammal species (more than or equal to 10 kg) that have gone globally or continentally extinct between the beginning of the Last Interglacial at 132 000 years BP and the late Holocene 1000 years BP, testing the relative roles played by glacial-interglacial climate change and humans. We show that the severity of extinction is strongly tied to hominin palaeobiogeography, with at most a weak, Eurasia-specific link to climate change. This first species-level macroscale analysis at relatively high geographical resolution provides strong support for modern humans as the primary driver of the worldwide megafauna losses during the late Quaternary.
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Scrutinizes historic extinctions in a detailed attempt to fathom their meaning in the context of Late Pleistocene losses. Historic disappearances of modern birds and mammals can be laid to a variety of effects, some climatic, some cultural. Also considers 'the extinctions which did not occur'. -after Editor
Article
Lima-Ribeiro and Diniz-Filho (2013) present a new compilation and analysis of the chronologies of human arrival and megafaunal extinction throughout the Americas. They find that in many places megafauna were apparently extinct before humans arrived; in many others, megafauna coexisted with humans for thousands of years before going extinct. They conclude that human impact made at most a minor and geographically restricted contribution to megafaunal extinction. We argue that Lima-Ribeiro and Diniz-Filho's (2013) conclusions are unreliable because they have not adequately accounted for uncertainties and biases that affect the estimation of extinction dates from fossil data and human-arrival dates from archeological data. We re-analyze their data taking these problems into account, and reach the opposite conclusion to theirs: extinction consistently followed human arrival with a delay of around one or two thousand years, in agreement with the overkill model of megafaunal extinction.