EXETER, ENGLAND—For decades, scholars have debated what led to the mass extinction of the so-called megafauna species such as wooly mammoths, sabertooth tigers, and giant armadillos. Some argued that the giant mammals were the victims of overhunting, while others pointed to climate change as the main factor in the great die-off. Now a group of researchers has used new statistical methods that they say point conclusively to human hunters as the culprits. The team examined thousands of scenarios and found that species extinction was more closely correlated to human migration than to climate change. “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 Lewis Bartlett of the University of Exeter's Centre for Ecology and Conservation in a press release. “It debunks the myth of early humans living in harmony with nature." For a similar study, go to "The Arrival of People Doomed New Zealand's Moa."
