From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adx2615
Abstract
One of the most widely cited objections to
hypotheses that defend a central role for
humans in late Pleistocene megafaunal
extinctions in South America has been the
assumption that extinct megafauna was a
marginal re-source in early human economies.
On the basis of accurate chronological
frames and faunal quantitative data,
we demonstrate that extinct megafauna were
the principal prey item of early foragers
from ~13,000 to 11,600 cali-brated years
before the present, and this fact had likely
been obscured by lumping together pre- and
post extinction archaeological faunal
assemblages within a single chronological w
indow. We also show that the mostexploited
extinct taxa were at the apex of the ranking
of the prey choice model. After the diversity
and abundanceof megafauna had already declined
severely (~12,500 B.P.), and especially after
they had virtually disappeared(~11,600 B.P.),
the human diet was broadened. This strongly
reinforces the idea that humans must be central
to the debate on Quaternary extinctions in
South America.
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