![]() | Late Pleistocene extinctions was nominated as a Natural sciences good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (August 12, 2022). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article was nominated for merging with Holocene extinction on 24-08-21. The result of the discussion was Not merged. |
![]() | On 15 December 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved from Late Pleistocene extinctions to Late Pleistocene extinctions. The result of the discussion was moved. |
This is a surprisingly terrible article that goes out of its way to argue for the Overkill hypothesis, when that hypothesis has its own article. It's crap and definitely needs expert attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.139.169 ( talk) 08:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
This is not an extinction event. I propose that this thread be renamed to "Quaternary extinction" to be more scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.37.247 ( talk) 02:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but several of the events occurred within a few generations due to the combined effects of the root stimuli and nuclear winter. When the affects of nuclear winter are added, the timeframe is reduced considerably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.37.247 ( talk) 20:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of edits recently making "arguments against" various hypotheses. Admittedly, I'm not up-to-date on the latest scientific literature, so hopefully someone's keeping an eye on this. We need to be sure that neither side (for or against the Overkill hypothesis) is given undue weight and the article meets WP:NPOV. I have noticed a few weasel words in the article, so it clearly needs review by an expert. – Visionholder ( talk) 22:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
my first remark is that it is contained several times in the article that a seperation of the bison of 240Ka left it naive. wich is unsourced. also i think it is not true. since firstly evolutionairy adaptions dont necessarilly disappear without trace in such a short period (morphologically they tend to do not). and secondly it is unclear if this adaption would have a possible positive effect on the species survivability in the abscence of humans, it may eg. have helped against predation through shortfaced bear (roughly similar size and looks), or canines( that share a roughly similar hunting method with humans). so i would like to see it sourced and provided with examples. my other remark is that even very small numbers of eg. seal hunters (like 1 or a few crews so under 100 individuals) managed to extinguish complete colonies of sea-mammals in mere years and species in at most decades. since that was not uncommonly done by clubbing or spearing it also shows no advanced technology's are needed for it. 24.132.171.225 ( talk) 04:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
later in article i find this: "Such a disease needs to be capable of killing of three species of bison while leaving a third very closely related species unaffected." wich in my opinion renders the whole bison argument very moot. it shows we actually have to do with either an adapted species, the most adaptable species, or a species that was kept in a certain regard (not necessarily reference) by humans, a thing btw wich is strongly suggested by the dependency of plains cultures of the bison. fascinatingly i think evidence for this could be found. one thing that would eg. be telling is if the other bison species migrated over considerably smaller distances, that could be habitually covered by humans. other reasons for preferential predation by humans could be more meat per kill, a more agressive species (that would simply put provide a hunter with bigger praise, or even result in considerable effort to hunt the animal for safety reasons). there is a sheer endless list of such factors, eg. a strong family bond like in elephants that stay with the dead would be lethal for any animal intensively hunted, yet more usefull or less adapted to humans then elephants, etc. 24.132.171.225 ( talk) 04:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The megafauna demise in Siberia appeared to have coincided with dramatic increase in rainfall at the Preboreal. The youngest fossils are about 9300 carbon years BP ~ 11,000 calendar years. The mammoth steppe changed into marshes and swamps, which was totally unsuitable for mammoths etc. Islands like Wrangel island tend to have their own micro climate, reason why the mammoths could have survived for a longer periodThere is no evidence of human occupation at the majority of the last refugia (ic Taimyr peninsula ). Obviously this is in favor of the climate change hypothesis. I intend to add that shortly.
This major event of oceanic foraminifera extinction in the mid pleistocene is at least as dramatic as the mammal extinctions, however totally unknown to wikipedia. I wonder if this warrants a new seperate article or another chapter here. Thoughts? http://jfr.geoscienceworld.org/content/32/3/274.abstract
AndrePooh ( talk) 12:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
it appears a little earlier. on the mega faunal extinctions i am rather of the human caused kind, if even because humans also burned large areals of forests, and killed animals in unneccesary masses.i dont think that would immediatly impact deep sea organisms. yet on the megafauna there is this: allthough less specialised animals may change in a period of about 100ka, highly specialised herbivores or carnivores could not. animals that first met men, (famous examples, dodo , lemurs, australian animals but if you dig deeper there are plenty stories, even of animal that had at other places had contact with humans, ) tend to not have any fear, which is deadly for herbivores, and not the safest way to deal with a new species for a carnivore either. so whether through overkill, ecological impact, ritual or depletion, the macro fauna had a very bad time. african animals that had been exposed to humans , and co-evolved fare better, still it is a standing tradition, to kill a lion eg. for to "be a man". usually human population density is bigger than is carnivore (..)(btw since it is close to australia..) 31.151.163.18 ( talk) 00:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Why is this article entitled "Quaternary extinction event"? Search on google scholar yields only 10 (sic!) results; of those, 5 actually uses the phrase "late Quaternary extinction event", and 1 other "end-Quaternary extinction event". But only 3 from those 10 clearly use this phrase to refer to the subject of this article (the wave of extinctions), while the rest refers to some specific "event" that was a part of the wave.
-- Kubanczyk ( talk) 13:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
There are two articles on the same topic. Holocene extinction — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 19:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. These extinctions here, were mostly occurring near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. The Holocene extinction is ongoing with a stronger onset of the last 200 years. Aruck ( talk) 13:54, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
This article is still filled with the 'TRUTHFUL' hypothesis, the human over-predation/kill. Wow. No better expert here, to remove the utter nonsense present in this one, one of the most silly WP articles?
Then, let's give some hints:
1-What was the only megafauna surely killed 'en masse' in USA?
The bison, right? The only one still alive, i'd say.
2-Why the ASIAN ELEPHANT is still alive, while the northern cousin, the mammouth, was gone thousands years ago? Really, someone is telling that humans weren't capable to kill asian elephants, while they were more than enough to chase and kill any mammouth in the northern emisphere? Really, someone 'advocate' of the overkill can display HOW in a land around 50,000,000 square km (Europe, URSS, USA) a very few hunters killed any proboscidates (mammouth, mastodon, ancient elephants)? While the indian/asian counterparts were 'spared' by humans?
3- the question about the 'african megafauna was evolved with men, so they were adapted to fight them'. Oh, yes. Then, mammouth were surely an honey bottle, after all they had just to survive to smilodon and american lions, or the ancient dire wolves.
4- humans killing the apex predator. Ah-ah-ah. Why they had should do this? Why they could do that? Are you aware, that even in the 'modern times', humans still had not killed stuff like Kodiak, Polar, Grizzly, Cougar and Jaguar, among the others? Why they could have wiped-out the prehistoric beasts, then? modern lions, wolves and bears are dangerous enough to be chased with modern weapons! Do not forget, that when europeans arrived, the american natives were AFRAID to enter in the woods, because the grizzly were too dangerous (see californian bear).
OF course, the Clovis, being equipped with laser swords and machine-guns, titanium body armour and GPS, should have not been afraid, right?
Excuse me for the hirony, but this article needs DEFINITIVELY a very good review.
Ps the australian extintion was not necessarly related with the US mass extinction. Total different situation, timing ecc.
Ps 2 madagascar saw Hepiornys still alive just hundreds years ago
Ps 3 This graphic is even more COMICAL, as it shows absolutely NEITHER EUROPE NOR ASIA! How can it be trusted, then? IT uses just the locations relatively favourable to the human caused extinction!!! Do you realize it? Just deleted TWO CONTINENTS!!! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif/300px-Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif 188.135.165.160 ( talk) 18:01, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Eurasian Pleistocene megafauna became extinct in roughly same time period despite having a much longer time to adapt to hunting pressure by humans. However, the extinction of the Eurasian megafauna can be viewed as a result of a different process than that of the American megafauna. This makes the theory less parsimonious since another mechanism is required. The latter case occurred after the sudden appearance of modern human hunters on a land mass they had never previously inhabited, while the former case was the culmination of the gradual northward movement of human hunters over thousands of years as their technology for enduring extreme cold and bringing down big game improved. Thus, while the hunting hypothesis does not necessarily predict the rough simultaneity of the north Eurasian and American megafaunal extinctions, this simultaneity cannot be regarded as evidence against it.
SO, when put in America it's good, while Mammouth in Europe weren't so stupid and needed 30,000 years of chase made by modern humans to be extinted? But someone is capable to understand how unbeliable is this paragraph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.20.209.65 ( talk) 02:11, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
References
{{
cite web}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |last1=
(
help)
My rationale is that there is very poor differentiation between the two pages.
I think either more clear separation between the two articles would need to be made, or both should be combined to be a comprehensive article describing the Sixth mass extinction, including extinctions lasting from the end of the ice age up until today. Alternatively, a more general page like Anthropogenic extinction would remove the timeline ambiguity and would allow discussion of both prehistoric and modern mass extinction attributable to humans. Let me know what you think. -- Indricotherium ( talk) 15:29, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
I support a stonger differentiation, but no merging. These extinctions here, were mostly occurring near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. The Holocene extinction is ongoing with a stronger onset of the last 200 years. Aruck ( talk) 13:56, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
For future use, by anyone- delete each one when all useful knowledge is extracted.
The ecological structure of the "Mammoth Fauna" in Eurasia - http://www.jstor.org/stable/23735450?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents
Human Ecology of Beringia - https://books.google.com.au/booksid=DQkpVuA7_6UC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=baikal+yak&source=bl&ots=HpIRFS3fT7&sig=bGKtaODYLfKuAMjtOpADnrpqHHs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz0rOhhqnTAhUHi5QKHSXZANcQ6AEINTAD#v=onepage&q=baikal%20yak&f=false
Terrestrial fluvial landscapes by Danielle Schreve- https://library.thehumanjourney.net/2795/26/Lost%20Landscapes-chapter4%20Terrestrial%20Fluvial%20landscapes.pdf
The Late Pleistocene fauna of Peneiós valley (Lárissa, Thessaly, Greece): new collected material Athanassios ATHANASSIOU- http://users.uoa.gr/~aathanas/CONGRESS/52.pdf
Selected records of Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis (Jäger, 1839) (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) in Italy Emmanuel M.E. BILLIA & Carmelo PETRONIO- http://paleoitalia.org/media/u/archives/03_Billia_Petronio.pdf -
The Pleistocene easternmost distribution of the species associated with the Eemian Palaeoloxodon antiquus assemblage, Diana Pushinka - http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/131/1318084071.pdf
Equids from Emine-Bair-Khosar Cave (Crimea, Ukraine) Eline N. van Asperen, Krzysztof Stefaniak, Iurii Proskurnyak, and Bogdan Ridush - http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/280.pdf
Equus: an evolution without lineages? Véra Eisenmann - http://www.senckenberg.de/fis/doc/abstracts/25_Eisenmann.pdf
Biostratigraphy of the Upper Pleistocene (Upper Neopleistocene) of the Southern Urals Anatoly Yakovlev, Guzel Danukalova, Eugenija Osipova - http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/136/1365603058.pdf
Late Pleistocene large mammal faunas from the Urals Pavel Kosintsev- http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/139/1393787470.pdf
Johnson 2002 Determinants of loss of mammal species during the Late Quaternary ‘megafauna’ extinctions: life history and ecology, but not body size - http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/suppl/2009/02/12/269.1506.2221.DC1/rspb20022130s01.pdf
First Record of Palaelodus (Aves: Phoenicopteriformes) from New Zealand Trevor H. Worthy, Alan J.D. Tennyson, Michael Archer and R. Paul Scofield)- https://australianmuseum.com/uploads/journals/18086/1545_complete.pdf
Past forests of Europe (H. J. B. Birks, W. Tinner) - http://forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu/media/atlas/Past_forests_of_Europe.pdf
The origin of Eurasian Mammoth Faunas (Mammuthus-Coelodonta Faunal Complex, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke)- http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/140/1404659577.pdf
SuperTah ( talk) 10:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The section on the "Climate change hypothesis" will benefit with a serious update of the research and some integration. Separate subjects of "temperature", "vegetation" and "rainfall" reflect a mutually-exclusive form of thinking in the article at present. All of these variables need to be considered as acting together. It is becoming clear that global warming led to deglaciation and increased precipitation, and increased precipitation led to forestation, wetlands and bogs - none of which support megaherbivores. Extinction was preceded by habitat fragmentation - a term that does not appear once in this article. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:05, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
This section like most needs some decent work. I wanted to cite an example the author used but when I finally found the source their statement was exactly incorrect. On top of this there are many other baseless claims. There have been a lot of additions to the climate hypothesis sections because they were lacking but even the hunting hypothesis sections could use the touch of someone more versed in the field than I. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattQBonner ( talk • contribs) 22:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
This article was a mess. It is now slightly less of a mess, but still needs a lot of attention, some of it by experts. The division into biogeographical realms makes logical sense but many species are listed in the wrong section, for example the Caribbean and Central American animals should be moved to be in the Neotropic (with South America), not Nearctic (North America). Ideally, someone who knows how to do it would split Afrotropic from Indomalaya, because there is no sensible reason to lump them together. I shall now concentrate on reorganising the Palearctic sections because I know most about them and they interest me.
Agrestis ( talk) 14:25, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
So the section "for" the hunting hypotheses is a simple lay out of the argument. However, the "against" is bullet pointed with each argument having a "for" counterargument in it? Really? So blatant. 56.0.143.25 ( talk) 13:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
The introduction section should be just that, and no more. Details and debates about specific hypotheses belong in their specific sections. So, I deleted non-introductory text from the intro section. If anybody thinks these "darlings" need to be incorporated into other sections, here's what I cut out of the introduction:
We now know that immediately after the extinction of the mammoth, birch forest replaced the grassland and that an era of significant fire began.
[1]
Such a scenario has been proposed as a contributing cause of the 1,300-year cold period known as the
Younger Dryas stadial.
citation needed This impact extinction hypothesis is still in debate due to the exacting field techniques required to extract minuscule particles of extraterrestrial impact markers such as
iridium at a high resolution from very thin strata in a repeatable fashion, as is necessary to conclusively distinguish the event peak from the local background level of the marker.
citation needed The debate seems to be exacerbated by infighting between the
Uniformitarianism camp and the
Catastrophism camp.
citation needed
This section could still be improved. But not with minutiae.
- Zulu Kane ( talk) 14:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
References
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 04:14, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand the logic of the way climate change is treated in this article. As is mentioned under the "Climate change hypothesis" section, the Pleistocene climate changes did probably not differ much from earlier interglacials that most megafauna survived. If so, there must have been something else going on in the Pleistocene as well. But the lede and the body is written as if climate change is one of several competing hypotheses of the cause of the extinctions, and as if evidence of climate change weighs against the other hypotheses. Do many experts actually believe this? If yes, I think their reasoning should be explained, possibly in the lede. If they don't say so explicitly, I would rewrite some paragraphs, so the logic of the text as a whole makes more sense. Ornilnas ( talk) 01:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I removed all of the WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in the overhunting hypothesis section that I could locate. This also somewhat resolved the NPOV concerns above; however, one argument against still has a counterargument needs to be moved to the correct section. I also removed some totally unsourced content from another hypothesis, and it is possible that some of there is still OR in this section or others. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 02:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
– LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 03:07, 21 November 2022 (UTC)Additionally, biochemical analyses have shown that Clovis tools were used in butchering horses and camels. [1]
— Removed in Special:Diff/1122991133
References
Last year, I moved the article to Quarternary extinction, arguing that the title gives the impression that this was a single event rather than a process, as the article itself explains. I also referred to the earlier section #About the title "Quaternary extinction event". This summer, someone reverted the move without any substantial arguments. Is anyone actually against moving to Quarternary extinction? Best, Tolanor ( talk) 17:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I've touched upon reasons that I've demoted the quality grade of this article to start tier in edit notes, but I haven't touched upon the problem in making this article about the entire Quaternary period instead of having a specific focus like late Pleistocene. The biggest problem with this article is that the geological time periods within the Pleistocene do not have as unified of extinction causes, that the early Pleistocene and Holocene extinctions are grouped with the notable late Pleistocene extinction events. As a result, it is very easy to confuse genera extinctions with different time periods because there are no specifications for their geological times of last appearances based on land formations.
This article needs to be narrower in epoch and geological scale to be more effective and to reduce the necessary size of the article - I propose renaming this article and limiting the genera extinctions within the latest geological time periods of the late Pleistocene - this means the Rancholabrean of North America, Lujanian of South America, or Calabrian of Europe for instance. This means limiting this article to 200,000 to 10,000 years ago generally, although these restrictions could be loosened by a couple thousand more - it should not touch the middle Pleistocene or middle Holocene however. Extinctions of early-middle Pleistocene or the Holocene should be eliminated with very few exceptions ( Mammuthus primigenius can be included because it's a prehistoric extinction shortly after Pleistocene but not Archaeolemur or moa for instance - leave those to the Holocene extinction page). Continental species extirpations should also be eliminated because the species is removed from a continent but is still extant in a different continent, contrary to the definition of extinct - this means removing dholes or spotted hyenas because the species is still extant by definition, just not as widespread in range (subspecies extinction can be tricky though).
Emphasizing the first appearances in addition to the last appearances of a species or genus by geological scale would also be quite useful - some genera have arrived to certain continents later than other, which can illustrate how long they've existed.
This article has plenty of problems and I doubt this article can easily be improved at all (overkill vs. gradual climate vs. sudden climate vs. diseases vs. mixed, lack of geological time scale mentions) - but I think making the focus of this article narrower would help. PrimalMustelid ( talk) 20:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
I noticed when going over the list that there are a lot of holocene extinctions included (like the malagasy lemurs, elephants birds etc). Should these be included? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 02:57, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
I think combining these sections only serves to confuse the reader. There are also some taxa like Pelorovis that probably didn't make it into the Late Pleistocene that need to be removed as well. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 19:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
The Late Pleistocene and Holocene extinctions differ not only in timing, but also in mechanism - the first one is correlated with (and likely caused by) the early dispersal of genus Homo, while large-scale exploitation and industrialization are responsible for the second one. It makes sense to have this be a "guideline" to sort out the content of these two articles, and to move this one to Late Pleistocene extinction event, with Quaternary extinction being (if it is needed) a summary article talking about both from a broader perspective (assuming we have enough notable sources treating them as two pulses of a wider extinction event). Chaotic Enby ( talk) 09:57, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Should Mexican and Central American taxa go in the North America section (as they are geographically part of North America or should they go in the South America section, as they are techically part of the Neotropical Realm? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 23:33, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The current scope of that article greatly overlaps with this one. Well over half of the prose of the "Pleistocene megafauna" article is dedicated to megafaunal extinction, which is the scope of this article. I really do not see a reason for the two articles to be remain separate, unless Pleistocene megafauna is essentially entirely rewritten from the ground up. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 10:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. ( closed by non-admin page mover) NmWTfs85lXusaybq ( talk) 03:10, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
Quaternary extinction event → Late Pleistocene extinctions – Calling the extinctions of the late Pleistocene-early Holocene a single event has been well-known to be a misnomer when one evaluates extinctions causes of Europe, Africa, and Asia compared to other continents, plus "Late Pleistocene extinctions" appears to be the most common term for the extinction phases according to Google Scholar. It and the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event pages should be moved to new titles for more accurate names. PrimalMustelid ( talk) 17:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Why does the first part of this article have a long, exhaustive list of every single animal that went extinct by region during the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction event? I think that these long lists could simply be moved into their own page titled "List of Late Pleistocene extinct megafauna" or something along those lines while keeping the parts that discuss the causes of the extinction by region. Additionally, since the causes and timing of each region's extinctions events are heterogeneous, I think making some region-specific articles that go in-depth into their region while keeping this page as a broad-scoped analysis of the timing, causes, and effects of the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction event at large. I don't normally support this for pages about extinction events, but given their recentness, their aforementioned heterogeneity, and the fact that we know a great deal about the narrow, specific timeframes of the environmental and human population changes by region and that the extinction pulses of each continent tended to happen during completely different climatic events, I think it's a possible suggestion that deserves some consideration. Anteosaurus magnificus ( talk) 02:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
![]() | Late Pleistocene extinctions was nominated as a Natural sciences good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (August 12, 2022). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article was nominated for merging with Holocene extinction on 24-08-21. The result of the discussion was Not merged. |
![]() | On 15 December 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved from Late Pleistocene extinctions to Late Pleistocene extinctions. The result of the discussion was moved. |
This is a surprisingly terrible article that goes out of its way to argue for the Overkill hypothesis, when that hypothesis has its own article. It's crap and definitely needs expert attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.139.169 ( talk) 08:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
This is not an extinction event. I propose that this thread be renamed to "Quaternary extinction" to be more scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.37.247 ( talk) 02:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but several of the events occurred within a few generations due to the combined effects of the root stimuli and nuclear winter. When the affects of nuclear winter are added, the timeframe is reduced considerably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.37.247 ( talk) 20:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
There seems to be a lot of edits recently making "arguments against" various hypotheses. Admittedly, I'm not up-to-date on the latest scientific literature, so hopefully someone's keeping an eye on this. We need to be sure that neither side (for or against the Overkill hypothesis) is given undue weight and the article meets WP:NPOV. I have noticed a few weasel words in the article, so it clearly needs review by an expert. – Visionholder ( talk) 22:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
my first remark is that it is contained several times in the article that a seperation of the bison of 240Ka left it naive. wich is unsourced. also i think it is not true. since firstly evolutionairy adaptions dont necessarilly disappear without trace in such a short period (morphologically they tend to do not). and secondly it is unclear if this adaption would have a possible positive effect on the species survivability in the abscence of humans, it may eg. have helped against predation through shortfaced bear (roughly similar size and looks), or canines( that share a roughly similar hunting method with humans). so i would like to see it sourced and provided with examples. my other remark is that even very small numbers of eg. seal hunters (like 1 or a few crews so under 100 individuals) managed to extinguish complete colonies of sea-mammals in mere years and species in at most decades. since that was not uncommonly done by clubbing or spearing it also shows no advanced technology's are needed for it. 24.132.171.225 ( talk) 04:34, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
later in article i find this: "Such a disease needs to be capable of killing of three species of bison while leaving a third very closely related species unaffected." wich in my opinion renders the whole bison argument very moot. it shows we actually have to do with either an adapted species, the most adaptable species, or a species that was kept in a certain regard (not necessarily reference) by humans, a thing btw wich is strongly suggested by the dependency of plains cultures of the bison. fascinatingly i think evidence for this could be found. one thing that would eg. be telling is if the other bison species migrated over considerably smaller distances, that could be habitually covered by humans. other reasons for preferential predation by humans could be more meat per kill, a more agressive species (that would simply put provide a hunter with bigger praise, or even result in considerable effort to hunt the animal for safety reasons). there is a sheer endless list of such factors, eg. a strong family bond like in elephants that stay with the dead would be lethal for any animal intensively hunted, yet more usefull or less adapted to humans then elephants, etc. 24.132.171.225 ( talk) 04:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
The megafauna demise in Siberia appeared to have coincided with dramatic increase in rainfall at the Preboreal. The youngest fossils are about 9300 carbon years BP ~ 11,000 calendar years. The mammoth steppe changed into marshes and swamps, which was totally unsuitable for mammoths etc. Islands like Wrangel island tend to have their own micro climate, reason why the mammoths could have survived for a longer periodThere is no evidence of human occupation at the majority of the last refugia (ic Taimyr peninsula ). Obviously this is in favor of the climate change hypothesis. I intend to add that shortly.
This major event of oceanic foraminifera extinction in the mid pleistocene is at least as dramatic as the mammal extinctions, however totally unknown to wikipedia. I wonder if this warrants a new seperate article or another chapter here. Thoughts? http://jfr.geoscienceworld.org/content/32/3/274.abstract
AndrePooh ( talk) 12:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
it appears a little earlier. on the mega faunal extinctions i am rather of the human caused kind, if even because humans also burned large areals of forests, and killed animals in unneccesary masses.i dont think that would immediatly impact deep sea organisms. yet on the megafauna there is this: allthough less specialised animals may change in a period of about 100ka, highly specialised herbivores or carnivores could not. animals that first met men, (famous examples, dodo , lemurs, australian animals but if you dig deeper there are plenty stories, even of animal that had at other places had contact with humans, ) tend to not have any fear, which is deadly for herbivores, and not the safest way to deal with a new species for a carnivore either. so whether through overkill, ecological impact, ritual or depletion, the macro fauna had a very bad time. african animals that had been exposed to humans , and co-evolved fare better, still it is a standing tradition, to kill a lion eg. for to "be a man". usually human population density is bigger than is carnivore (..)(btw since it is close to australia..) 31.151.163.18 ( talk) 00:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Why is this article entitled "Quaternary extinction event"? Search on google scholar yields only 10 (sic!) results; of those, 5 actually uses the phrase "late Quaternary extinction event", and 1 other "end-Quaternary extinction event". But only 3 from those 10 clearly use this phrase to refer to the subject of this article (the wave of extinctions), while the rest refers to some specific "event" that was a part of the wave.
-- Kubanczyk ( talk) 13:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
There are two articles on the same topic. Holocene extinction — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.159.62.2 ( talk) 19:50, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. These extinctions here, were mostly occurring near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. The Holocene extinction is ongoing with a stronger onset of the last 200 years. Aruck ( talk) 13:54, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
This article is still filled with the 'TRUTHFUL' hypothesis, the human over-predation/kill. Wow. No better expert here, to remove the utter nonsense present in this one, one of the most silly WP articles?
Then, let's give some hints:
1-What was the only megafauna surely killed 'en masse' in USA?
The bison, right? The only one still alive, i'd say.
2-Why the ASIAN ELEPHANT is still alive, while the northern cousin, the mammouth, was gone thousands years ago? Really, someone is telling that humans weren't capable to kill asian elephants, while they were more than enough to chase and kill any mammouth in the northern emisphere? Really, someone 'advocate' of the overkill can display HOW in a land around 50,000,000 square km (Europe, URSS, USA) a very few hunters killed any proboscidates (mammouth, mastodon, ancient elephants)? While the indian/asian counterparts were 'spared' by humans?
3- the question about the 'african megafauna was evolved with men, so they were adapted to fight them'. Oh, yes. Then, mammouth were surely an honey bottle, after all they had just to survive to smilodon and american lions, or the ancient dire wolves.
4- humans killing the apex predator. Ah-ah-ah. Why they had should do this? Why they could do that? Are you aware, that even in the 'modern times', humans still had not killed stuff like Kodiak, Polar, Grizzly, Cougar and Jaguar, among the others? Why they could have wiped-out the prehistoric beasts, then? modern lions, wolves and bears are dangerous enough to be chased with modern weapons! Do not forget, that when europeans arrived, the american natives were AFRAID to enter in the woods, because the grizzly were too dangerous (see californian bear).
OF course, the Clovis, being equipped with laser swords and machine-guns, titanium body armour and GPS, should have not been afraid, right?
Excuse me for the hirony, but this article needs DEFINITIVELY a very good review.
Ps the australian extintion was not necessarly related with the US mass extinction. Total different situation, timing ecc.
Ps 2 madagascar saw Hepiornys still alive just hundreds years ago
Ps 3 This graphic is even more COMICAL, as it shows absolutely NEITHER EUROPE NOR ASIA! How can it be trusted, then? IT uses just the locations relatively favourable to the human caused extinction!!! Do you realize it? Just deleted TWO CONTINENTS!!! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif/300px-Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif 188.135.165.160 ( talk) 18:01, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Eurasian Pleistocene megafauna became extinct in roughly same time period despite having a much longer time to adapt to hunting pressure by humans. However, the extinction of the Eurasian megafauna can be viewed as a result of a different process than that of the American megafauna. This makes the theory less parsimonious since another mechanism is required. The latter case occurred after the sudden appearance of modern human hunters on a land mass they had never previously inhabited, while the former case was the culmination of the gradual northward movement of human hunters over thousands of years as their technology for enduring extreme cold and bringing down big game improved. Thus, while the hunting hypothesis does not necessarily predict the rough simultaneity of the north Eurasian and American megafaunal extinctions, this simultaneity cannot be regarded as evidence against it.
SO, when put in America it's good, while Mammouth in Europe weren't so stupid and needed 30,000 years of chase made by modern humans to be extinted? But someone is capable to understand how unbeliable is this paragraph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.20.209.65 ( talk) 02:11, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
References
{{
cite web}}
: Explicit use of et al. in: |last1=
(
help)
My rationale is that there is very poor differentiation between the two pages.
I think either more clear separation between the two articles would need to be made, or both should be combined to be a comprehensive article describing the Sixth mass extinction, including extinctions lasting from the end of the ice age up until today. Alternatively, a more general page like Anthropogenic extinction would remove the timeline ambiguity and would allow discussion of both prehistoric and modern mass extinction attributable to humans. Let me know what you think. -- Indricotherium ( talk) 15:29, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
I support a stonger differentiation, but no merging. These extinctions here, were mostly occurring near the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. The Holocene extinction is ongoing with a stronger onset of the last 200 years. Aruck ( talk) 13:56, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
For future use, by anyone- delete each one when all useful knowledge is extracted.
The ecological structure of the "Mammoth Fauna" in Eurasia - http://www.jstor.org/stable/23735450?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents
Human Ecology of Beringia - https://books.google.com.au/booksid=DQkpVuA7_6UC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=baikal+yak&source=bl&ots=HpIRFS3fT7&sig=bGKtaODYLfKuAMjtOpADnrpqHHs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz0rOhhqnTAhUHi5QKHSXZANcQ6AEINTAD#v=onepage&q=baikal%20yak&f=false
Terrestrial fluvial landscapes by Danielle Schreve- https://library.thehumanjourney.net/2795/26/Lost%20Landscapes-chapter4%20Terrestrial%20Fluvial%20landscapes.pdf
The Late Pleistocene fauna of Peneiós valley (Lárissa, Thessaly, Greece): new collected material Athanassios ATHANASSIOU- http://users.uoa.gr/~aathanas/CONGRESS/52.pdf
Selected records of Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis (Jäger, 1839) (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) in Italy Emmanuel M.E. BILLIA & Carmelo PETRONIO- http://paleoitalia.org/media/u/archives/03_Billia_Petronio.pdf -
The Pleistocene easternmost distribution of the species associated with the Eemian Palaeoloxodon antiquus assemblage, Diana Pushinka - http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/131/1318084071.pdf
Equids from Emine-Bair-Khosar Cave (Crimea, Ukraine) Eline N. van Asperen, Krzysztof Stefaniak, Iurii Proskurnyak, and Bogdan Ridush - http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/280.pdf
Equus: an evolution without lineages? Véra Eisenmann - http://www.senckenberg.de/fis/doc/abstracts/25_Eisenmann.pdf
Biostratigraphy of the Upper Pleistocene (Upper Neopleistocene) of the Southern Urals Anatoly Yakovlev, Guzel Danukalova, Eugenija Osipova - http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/136/1365603058.pdf
Late Pleistocene large mammal faunas from the Urals Pavel Kosintsev- http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/139/1393787470.pdf
Johnson 2002 Determinants of loss of mammal species during the Late Quaternary ‘megafauna’ extinctions: life history and ecology, but not body size - http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/suppl/2009/02/12/269.1506.2221.DC1/rspb20022130s01.pdf
First Record of Palaelodus (Aves: Phoenicopteriformes) from New Zealand Trevor H. Worthy, Alan J.D. Tennyson, Michael Archer and R. Paul Scofield)- https://australianmuseum.com/uploads/journals/18086/1545_complete.pdf
Past forests of Europe (H. J. B. Birks, W. Tinner) - http://forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu/media/atlas/Past_forests_of_Europe.pdf
The origin of Eurasian Mammoth Faunas (Mammuthus-Coelodonta Faunal Complex, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke)- http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/140/1404659577.pdf
SuperTah ( talk) 10:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC) ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The section on the "Climate change hypothesis" will benefit with a serious update of the research and some integration. Separate subjects of "temperature", "vegetation" and "rainfall" reflect a mutually-exclusive form of thinking in the article at present. All of these variables need to be considered as acting together. It is becoming clear that global warming led to deglaciation and increased precipitation, and increased precipitation led to forestation, wetlands and bogs - none of which support megaherbivores. Extinction was preceded by habitat fragmentation - a term that does not appear once in this article. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:05, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
This section like most needs some decent work. I wanted to cite an example the author used but when I finally found the source their statement was exactly incorrect. On top of this there are many other baseless claims. There have been a lot of additions to the climate hypothesis sections because they were lacking but even the hunting hypothesis sections could use the touch of someone more versed in the field than I. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattQBonner ( talk • contribs) 22:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
This article was a mess. It is now slightly less of a mess, but still needs a lot of attention, some of it by experts. The division into biogeographical realms makes logical sense but many species are listed in the wrong section, for example the Caribbean and Central American animals should be moved to be in the Neotropic (with South America), not Nearctic (North America). Ideally, someone who knows how to do it would split Afrotropic from Indomalaya, because there is no sensible reason to lump them together. I shall now concentrate on reorganising the Palearctic sections because I know most about them and they interest me.
Agrestis ( talk) 14:25, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
So the section "for" the hunting hypotheses is a simple lay out of the argument. However, the "against" is bullet pointed with each argument having a "for" counterargument in it? Really? So blatant. 56.0.143.25 ( talk) 13:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
The introduction section should be just that, and no more. Details and debates about specific hypotheses belong in their specific sections. So, I deleted non-introductory text from the intro section. If anybody thinks these "darlings" need to be incorporated into other sections, here's what I cut out of the introduction:
We now know that immediately after the extinction of the mammoth, birch forest replaced the grassland and that an era of significant fire began.
[1]
Such a scenario has been proposed as a contributing cause of the 1,300-year cold period known as the
Younger Dryas stadial.
citation needed This impact extinction hypothesis is still in debate due to the exacting field techniques required to extract minuscule particles of extraterrestrial impact markers such as
iridium at a high resolution from very thin strata in a repeatable fashion, as is necessary to conclusively distinguish the event peak from the local background level of the marker.
citation needed The debate seems to be exacerbated by infighting between the
Uniformitarianism camp and the
Catastrophism camp.
citation needed
This section could still be improved. But not with minutiae.
- Zulu Kane ( talk) 14:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
References
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 04:14, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't understand the logic of the way climate change is treated in this article. As is mentioned under the "Climate change hypothesis" section, the Pleistocene climate changes did probably not differ much from earlier interglacials that most megafauna survived. If so, there must have been something else going on in the Pleistocene as well. But the lede and the body is written as if climate change is one of several competing hypotheses of the cause of the extinctions, and as if evidence of climate change weighs against the other hypotheses. Do many experts actually believe this? If yes, I think their reasoning should be explained, possibly in the lede. If they don't say so explicitly, I would rewrite some paragraphs, so the logic of the text as a whole makes more sense. Ornilnas ( talk) 01:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
I removed all of the WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in the overhunting hypothesis section that I could locate. This also somewhat resolved the NPOV concerns above; however, one argument against still has a counterargument needs to be moved to the correct section. I also removed some totally unsourced content from another hypothesis, and it is possible that some of there is still OR in this section or others. – LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 02:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
– LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄) 03:07, 21 November 2022 (UTC)Additionally, biochemical analyses have shown that Clovis tools were used in butchering horses and camels. [1]
— Removed in Special:Diff/1122991133
References
Last year, I moved the article to Quarternary extinction, arguing that the title gives the impression that this was a single event rather than a process, as the article itself explains. I also referred to the earlier section #About the title "Quaternary extinction event". This summer, someone reverted the move without any substantial arguments. Is anyone actually against moving to Quarternary extinction? Best, Tolanor ( talk) 17:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I've touched upon reasons that I've demoted the quality grade of this article to start tier in edit notes, but I haven't touched upon the problem in making this article about the entire Quaternary period instead of having a specific focus like late Pleistocene. The biggest problem with this article is that the geological time periods within the Pleistocene do not have as unified of extinction causes, that the early Pleistocene and Holocene extinctions are grouped with the notable late Pleistocene extinction events. As a result, it is very easy to confuse genera extinctions with different time periods because there are no specifications for their geological times of last appearances based on land formations.
This article needs to be narrower in epoch and geological scale to be more effective and to reduce the necessary size of the article - I propose renaming this article and limiting the genera extinctions within the latest geological time periods of the late Pleistocene - this means the Rancholabrean of North America, Lujanian of South America, or Calabrian of Europe for instance. This means limiting this article to 200,000 to 10,000 years ago generally, although these restrictions could be loosened by a couple thousand more - it should not touch the middle Pleistocene or middle Holocene however. Extinctions of early-middle Pleistocene or the Holocene should be eliminated with very few exceptions ( Mammuthus primigenius can be included because it's a prehistoric extinction shortly after Pleistocene but not Archaeolemur or moa for instance - leave those to the Holocene extinction page). Continental species extirpations should also be eliminated because the species is removed from a continent but is still extant in a different continent, contrary to the definition of extinct - this means removing dholes or spotted hyenas because the species is still extant by definition, just not as widespread in range (subspecies extinction can be tricky though).
Emphasizing the first appearances in addition to the last appearances of a species or genus by geological scale would also be quite useful - some genera have arrived to certain continents later than other, which can illustrate how long they've existed.
This article has plenty of problems and I doubt this article can easily be improved at all (overkill vs. gradual climate vs. sudden climate vs. diseases vs. mixed, lack of geological time scale mentions) - but I think making the focus of this article narrower would help. PrimalMustelid ( talk) 20:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
I noticed when going over the list that there are a lot of holocene extinctions included (like the malagasy lemurs, elephants birds etc). Should these be included? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 02:57, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
I think combining these sections only serves to confuse the reader. There are also some taxa like Pelorovis that probably didn't make it into the Late Pleistocene that need to be removed as well. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 19:47, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
The Late Pleistocene and Holocene extinctions differ not only in timing, but also in mechanism - the first one is correlated with (and likely caused by) the early dispersal of genus Homo, while large-scale exploitation and industrialization are responsible for the second one. It makes sense to have this be a "guideline" to sort out the content of these two articles, and to move this one to Late Pleistocene extinction event, with Quaternary extinction being (if it is needed) a summary article talking about both from a broader perspective (assuming we have enough notable sources treating them as two pulses of a wider extinction event). Chaotic Enby ( talk) 09:57, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Should Mexican and Central American taxa go in the North America section (as they are geographically part of North America or should they go in the South America section, as they are techically part of the Neotropical Realm? Hemiauchenia ( talk) 23:33, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The current scope of that article greatly overlaps with this one. Well over half of the prose of the "Pleistocene megafauna" article is dedicated to megafaunal extinction, which is the scope of this article. I really do not see a reason for the two articles to be remain separate, unless Pleistocene megafauna is essentially entirely rewritten from the ground up. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 10:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. ( closed by non-admin page mover) NmWTfs85lXusaybq ( talk) 03:10, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
Quaternary extinction event → Late Pleistocene extinctions – Calling the extinctions of the late Pleistocene-early Holocene a single event has been well-known to be a misnomer when one evaluates extinctions causes of Europe, Africa, and Asia compared to other continents, plus "Late Pleistocene extinctions" appears to be the most common term for the extinction phases according to Google Scholar. It and the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event pages should be moved to new titles for more accurate names. PrimalMustelid ( talk) 17:30, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Why does the first part of this article have a long, exhaustive list of every single animal that went extinct by region during the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction event? I think that these long lists could simply be moved into their own page titled "List of Late Pleistocene extinct megafauna" or something along those lines while keeping the parts that discuss the causes of the extinction by region. Additionally, since the causes and timing of each region's extinctions events are heterogeneous, I think making some region-specific articles that go in-depth into their region while keeping this page as a broad-scoped analysis of the timing, causes, and effects of the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction event at large. I don't normally support this for pages about extinction events, but given their recentness, their aforementioned heterogeneity, and the fact that we know a great deal about the narrow, specific timeframes of the environmental and human population changes by region and that the extinction pulses of each continent tended to happen during completely different climatic events, I think it's a possible suggestion that deserves some consideration. Anteosaurus magnificus ( talk) 02:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)