ANTH 3650 Lecture Notes - Megafauna, Castoroides, Mastodon
Document Summary
~what is now present day iraq, afganistan & iran. Indo-european migrations: in 2500 bc humans expanded out of the homeland in eastern europe, the homeland was one speech community with one shared language, they spread quickly across europe, then over to north america, through both west (alaska) and east coasts. Martin article: the discovery of america: main argument: humans wiped out the mega-fauna (mammoths, sloths, mastadons, giant beavers, etc. ) ~humans also grew and expanded with animal populations. ~humans hunted the largest animals they could find and when they couldn"t find it anymore, they went to the next largest. Animals did not have a chance to adapt to the hunting styles of humans and could not fight back as easily. Humans were very resourceful with animal parts and used as much as possible (ex. Fur for clothing, bones for weapons, structures, etc. : could also argue that humans may not be entirely responsible for the large fauna extinction.
