Scientists say mankind, not climate, killed off the woolly mammoth, the saber

In a statement, the researchers explained that humanity was “the main agency causing the demise [of megafauna], with climate change exacerbating the number of extinctions”.

Recent findings suggest human activity played a larger role in the extinction of early large mammals than climate change.

This group of animals, known of as megafauna, had all gone extinct by about 10,000 years ago, but the reason why has been a source of debate among the science community. It discovered that there have been coincidences of species extinction and human unfold that exhibits that people have been the primary cause behind the extinctions and local weather change made the state of affairs even worse. Researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Exeter ran thousands of scenarios which mapped the windows of time in which each species became extinct and humans arrived on different continents or islands. The data collected in this analysis were studied alongside the climate reconstructions that occurred in the past 90,000 years. “Were they killing them for food, was it early use of fire or were they driven out of their habitats”, Mr. Bartlett said. In Asia and other parts of the world, however, they found patterns of species loss that couldn’t be accounted for through either of these two catalysts and require additional analysis.

“As far as we are concerned, this research is the nail in the coffin of this 50-year debate – humans were the dominant cause of the extinction of megafauna”, said lead study author Lewis Bartlett in an Exeter news release. The exact features or actions of the ancient settlers that caused the demise of the species remain unknown.

According to Dr. Andrea Manica, of Cambridge University, who was lead supervisor on the paper, their models reveal details about the timing and level of extinctions for the majority of the world, however there are still questions regarding mainland Asia. Nonetheless, the study has shown that more than climate change, human colonization caused the extinction, refuting the myth that humans have always lived peacefully with nature.

Researchers said that they will now look into why the megafauna continued to exist for so long in Asia, where they suffered very low rates of extinction.