Late Pleistocene extinctions

Late Pleistocene extinctions were the widespread losses of large-bodied animal species, especially outside Africa, under interacting climatic shifts and human pressures.

Quaternary extinction event: A broad wave of animal extinctions during the Quaternary, concentrated in the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. This broader extinction pattern includes the Late Pleistocene losses.
Woolly mammoth: An Ice Age elephant adapted to cold steppe environments across northern Eurasia and North America. Its mainland populations disappeared near the end of the Pleistocene, while isolated island populations persisted longer.
Paul S. Martin: An American geoscientist who developed the overkill hypothesis for the extinction of North American megafauna. His proposal made rapid human hunting a central explanation for the losses.
Megafaunal extinction chronology: The dating of megafaunal population declines and last appearances across regions. The timing helps test whether extinctions followed human arrival, climatic change, or both.
Overkill hypothesis: The hypothesis that human hunting caused or substantially accelerated many Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions. It identifies direct hunting as one proposed pressure on large animals.
Smilodon: An extinct genus of large saber-toothed cats native to the Americas. Its disappearance illustrates the loss of specialized predators alongside herbivores.
Richard G. Klein: An American paleoanthropologist known for research on human evolution and African archaeological records. His work helped shape arguments about why African megafauna experienced fewer losses.
Anthropocene: A proposed geological interval defined by substantial human influence on Earth's systems. The extinctions are often treated as an early example of human reshaping of ecosystems.
Younger Dryas: A roughly 1,200-year return to colder conditions near the end of the last glacial period. Its abrupt climate shift overlapped with late extinctions in some regions.
Glyptodon: An extinct genus of large, armored mammals related to modern armadillos in South America. Its loss represents the decline of South American megafauna.

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