A New New World

So here's the idea, I want to see some ideas here about how the Americas would have progressed with a less severe Pleistocene extinction. You can choose from any combo of the following candidates for domestication:

Oxes, Mastodons/Mammoths, Horses (5 species), and North American Camelids.

If you want any more you can follow this link :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event#North_America

This mainly applies to North America but South is okay too.
 
Impossible. If they're the same type of Native Americans, the indigenous megafauna will almost certainly be wiped out.

Not necessarily. It was environmental distress more than hunting that killed off the megafauna. And if the humans had say, arrived a little earlier, when they were less prolific hunters, the populations may have been left high enough to cope with the environmental stresses.
 
Not necessarily. It was environmental distress more than hunting that killed off the megafauna. And if the humans had say, arrived a little earlier, when they were less prolific hunters, the populations may have been left high enough to cope with the environmental stresses.

That doesn't explain why mass extinctions have followed the spread of man every time we have moved beyond areas where Homo species lived before us.

The Megafauna of Africa and most of Eurasia had millions of years to learn how to deal with humans and before them proto-humans, from before the stone age. The Megafauna of the Americas had no time to adapt to a species with all the tools, weapons, tactics, and tenacity that stone age humans had.

On the other hand, the Colonizations of Australia and the Americas happened at different times, under different global climates, and yet you still see the same mass die offs of anything with plenty of meat on it's bones, as well as the predators that hunted them.

To the proto-ameridians, the Americas really were the proverbial land of milk and honey, or rather mastodon steaks and giant sloth jerky. In some cases I bet they walked up to animals and just cut their throats.
 
Now as I understand it, the state of scholarship on this is that it's still controversial where the extinctions of around 12,000 years ago were brought on by humans or by sudden climate change. Quite likely it seems to me there's some combination of the two at work.

Also, I'm not quite sure what adaptations on the part of an elephant would keep it from being a meat source as surely as a mammoth, mastodon or ground sloth.

I say go for it, and I call camels!

That doesn't explain why mass extinctions have followed the spread of man every time we have moved beyond areas where Homo species lived before us.

The Megafauna of Africa and most of Eurasia had millions of years to learn how to deal with humans and before them proto-humans, from before the stone age. The Megafauna of the Americas had no time to adapt to a species with all the tools, weapons, tactics, and tenacity that stone age humans had.

On the other hand, the Colonizations of Australia and the Americas happened at different times, under different global climates, and yet you still see the same mass die offs of anything with plenty of meat on it's bones, as well as the predators that hunted them.

To the proto-ameridians, the Americas really were the proverbial land of milk and honey, or rather mastodon steaks and giant sloth jerky. In some cases I bet they walked up to animals and just cut their throats.
 
I saw a recent Discovery Chanel special following a scientist who claims an asteroid strike (Tugunska (SP?) style) finished the megafauna. Personally I'm more int the "we did it" category on megafauna extinction, but still, good enough for AH. :D

Whatever the case, I vote Mammoths at least be tamed (ala OTL Elephants) if not domesticated. Phear the Hannibal of the Plains! :cool:

Edit: linkie
 
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Also, I'm not quite sure what adaptations on the part of an elephant would keep it from being a meat source as surely as a mammoth, mastodon or ground sloth.

FYI the theory as repeated by Diamond (and therefore taken as gospel here :rolleyes:) is that elephants (and other African megafauna) evolved with humans and so learned to stay away from the smelly naked two-leggers. Asian and American megafauna, however, did not and so they basically didn't know to fear people. Kind of like how sea birds will casually watch humans walk up to their nests and take their eggs without issue (this is how the Blue-Footed Boobie got its name - from the Spanish Bobo or stupid).

It's a good theory and undoubtedly has a lot of merit, but there are plenty of alternate ones.
 
I saw a recent Discovery Chanel special following a scientist who claims an asteroid strike (Tugunska (SP?) style) finished the megafauna. Personally I'm more int the "we did it" category on megafauna extinction, but still, good enough for AH. :D

Whatever the case, I vote Mammoths at least be tamed (ala OTL Elephants) if not domesticated. Phear the Hannibal of the Plains! :cool:

Edit: linkie

I hate to say it but Mammoths are pretty much doomed any way you look at it. They were built for the cold and the Ice Age was already ending before the Younger Dryas so even if the YD didn't happen it would only slow the process not prevent it and then there are the Humans who would hunt them as a major food source. But in a prevented YD I think that Mammoths (along with other megafauna) would act like a buffer to other Animals in North America might be able to survive including some species that could one day be domesticated.
 
Not necessarily...iirc big critters regulate body temperature better and generally do better in climate change environments, hence why megafauna evolves in the first place. Generally takes something drastic to wipe them out: food shortage due to climate disaster or over-hunting by determined little wise guys with sharp objects.
 
Not necessarily...iirc big critters regulate body temperature better and generally do better in climate change environments, hence why megafauna evolves in the first place. Generally takes something drastic to wipe them out: food shortage due to climate disaster or over-hunting by determined little wise guys with sharp objects.

But when the weather gets too warm they'll get too hot and overheat and that still leaves Humans, except now they have even more mouths to feed.
 
But when the weather gets too warm they'll get too hot and overheat and that still leaves Humans, except now they have even more mouths to feed.
except the Mega Fauna went thru several Inter Glacials, seeming to thrive on the vastly expanded Tundras.

There are several [Controversial] reports from French Fur Hunters in the latter 1600's about Mammoths in the northern Hudson Bay Regions.

Perhaps if the Land Bridges from Asia and Europe were cut earlier than OTL, Perhaps by a sudden change of Climate [colder] that causes massive Blizzards.
This would stop new arrivals, and accelerate the movement south of the People who have already arrived,
With the Easier to hunt, smaller Animals in the warmer South, there would be less reason to expand into the colder Regions, where the Megafauna lived.
 
There are several [Controversial] reports from French Fur Hunters in the latter 1600's about Mammoths in the northern Hudson Bay Regions.

This is because Inuit and Dene people were trading around Mammoth ivory from Mammoths long dead, causing the French to think they still existed. A similar thing happened in Siberia.

I think the megafauna were dying out because of rapid climate change, but were dealt the death blow by people (Paleo-Indians) dealing with it too.

I personally would like to have seen at least horses and Camels be domesticated so the Great Plains would equal Eurasian steppes and The Southwest the Arabian desert.
 
Camels would be cooler and probably more versatile, IMHO. North American proto-camels were (for the most part) larger and plains-dwelling grazing animals rather than desert creatures.
 
But when the weather gets too warm they'll get too hot and overheat and that still leaves Humans, except now they have even more mouths to feed.
You're sticking to wooly mammoths. The Americas had quite a few proboscideans outside of 'em. In fact South and North America combined had more proboscidean species than Africa+Eurasia, most of which lived in template and hot climates and had short or no hair. And guess what, Africa+Eurasia only has lost one proboscidean in the last 10000 years (excluding dwarf island species), while the Americas have lost all.Climate change can't explain megafauna extinctions, especially when you take into account that megafauna living in temperate and hot areas went extinct as well, after living for millions of years there, and that in the case of the Americas the extinctions are more and more younger as you move to the south. Mastodons and ground sloths were still around in Argentina by 4000 bC, for example. That can only be explained through an overkill hypothesis. Humans entered the Americas from the North, and the extinctions followed the same pattern.
 
So does anyone want to see any other animals that will make an appearance in my ATL? (Not sabre-tooths they are dying out already)
 
You're sticking to wooly mammoths. The Americas had quite a few proboscideans outside of 'em. In fact South and North America combined had more proboscidean species than Africa+Eurasia, most of which lived in template and hot climates and had short or no hair. And guess what, Africa+Eurasia only has lost one proboscidean in the last 10000 years (excluding dwarf island species), while the Americas have lost all.Climate change can't explain megafauna extinctions, especially when you take into account that megafauna living in temperate and hot areas went extinct as well, after living for millions of years there, and that in the case of the Americas the extinctions are more and more younger as you move to the south. Mastodons and ground sloths were still around in Argentina by 4000 bC, for example. That can only be explained through an overkill hypothesis. Humans entered the Americas from the North, and the extinctions followed the same pattern.

:confused: Okay let me see if I got this right, you think that I believe climate was the main and only cause for the extinction correct?
 
well if humans domesticate mammoths they could cut their hair off in the summer like people do with sheep, and use that for something to.
 
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