Late Pleistocene South American megafaunal extinctions associated with rise of Fishtail points and human populations

PRATES, LUCIANO; PEREZ, SERGIO IVAN

NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Springer Nature

Año: 2021 vol. 12

2041-1723

In the 1970s, Paul Martinproposed that big game hunters armed with fluted projectile pointscolonized the Americas and drove the extinction of megafauna. Aroundfifty years later, the central role of humans in the extinctions isstill strongly debated in North American archaeology, but littleconsidered in South America. Here we analyze thetemporal dynamic and spatial distribution of South American megafaunaand fluted (Fishtail) projectile points to evaluate the role ofhumans in Pleistocene extinctions. Weobserve a strong relationship between the temporal density andspatial distribution of megafaunal species stratigraphically associated with humans and Fishtail projectile points, as well as with the fluctuations in humandemography. On this basis wepropose that the directeffect ofhuman predation was themain factor driving the megafaunal decline, with other secondary, butnecessary, co-occurringfactors for the collapse of the megafaunal community.