Knowra Overkill hypothesis Overkill hypothesis The hypothesis that human hunting caused many large animals to become extinct after people entered new regions. It is especially associated with late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions.
Megafauna : Large animals, especially those belonging to the Pleistocene fauna of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. The hypothesis concerns the extinction of large-bodied animals rather than species generally.
Quaternary extinction event : A wave of animal extinctions during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, concentrated among large-bodied species. The overkill hypothesis is a major explanation for this broader extinction pattern.
Climate change and megafaunal extinction : The explanation that climatic shifts altered habitats and contributed to the disappearance of large animals. It attributes extinction pressure to environmental change rather than primarily to human hunting.
Radiocarbon dating : A method for estimating the age of organic material by measuring its carbon-14 content. Dating fossils and archaeological sites determines whether human presence preceded local extinctions.
Pleistocene megafauna : Large animals that lived during the Pleistocene, including mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths. These animals are the best-known targets of the proposed human-driven extinction process.
Late Pleistocene extinctions in the Americas : The disappearance of numerous large mammals from the Americas near the end of the Pleistocene. The timing of these losses relative to human expansion is central to overkill arguments.
Blitzkrieg hypothesis : A version of the overkill hypothesis proposing that rapidly spreading human hunters caused swift megafaunal extinctions. It makes the proposed hunting-driven collapse especially rapid and geographically extensive.
Archaeological site formation : The natural and human processes that create, alter, and preserve archaeological deposits. Sparse or disturbed evidence can obscure how often people actually hunted extinct animals.
Human hunting : The pursuit and killing of animals by humans for food, materials, or other purposes. Repeated hunting is the direct pressure proposed to have reduced megafaunal populations.
Clovis culture : An archaeological culture in North America known for distinctive fluted stone projectile points, dating mainly to about 13,000 years ago. Clovis hunters were once closely associated with the proposed rapid extinction of American megafauna.
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