I see my main point has not really been addressed. If human beings are some kind of large-animal-bane, how come there are all these huge critters stomping around Africa, where human beings and hominids in general are from? It can't be that it's because these beasties are all terribly afraid of people, because they're not. One obvious reason I can think of is that because Africa is pretty balmy and has lots of game, unlike Ice Age Europe, so people would have no need to go after big critters. However, that does not work in the case of tropical Central and South America. Moreover, this speciesocide seems highly selective. They got all the horses, but for some reason left the buffalo alone? What about moose? Caribou? Cave bears are marked for death, but not grizzlies?
In the case of South America specifically, I suggest extremely tentatively that the sloth extinction may be part of the general replacement of indigenous animal species (like almost all the marsupials) by more efficient animals who migrated down the landbridge.
--- On Fri, 12/26/08, Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Most of the credible pre-Clovis sites in the Americas only
> take as back to around as far 13,000 or 13,500 before the
> present. The Monte Verde site in S. America is suggestive
> that humans might have settled North America a few thousand
> years before this, but in the end, the more extravagant
> claims of Paleoindians living 20,000 or 30,000 years before
> present are extremely controversial.