Patterns of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions in Europe and northern Asia

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results so far of our ‘Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinctions’ project, focussing on an assessment of latest available dates for selected target species from Europe and northern Asia. Our approach is to directly radiocarbon-date material of extinct megafauna to construct their spatio-temporal histories, and to seek correlations with the environmental and archaeological records with the aim of establishing the cause or causes of extinction. So far we have focussed on Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Megaloceros giganteus, and are accumulating data on Panthera leo/spelaea, Crocuta crocuta and Ursus spelaeus. Attempts to date Palaeoloxodon antiquus and Stephanorhinus hemitoechus (from southern Europe) were largely unsuccessful. The pattern of inferred terminal dates is staggered, with extinctions occurring over ca. 30 millennia, with some species previously thought extinct in the Late Pleistocene – M. primigenius and M. giganteus – surviving well into the Holocene. All species show dramatic range shifts in response to climatic/vegetational changes, especially the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum, Late Glacial Interstadial, Allerod, Younger Dryas and Holocene, and there was a general trend of progressive range reduction and fragmentation prior to final extinction. With the possible exceptions of P. antiquus, S. hemitoechus and Homo neanderthalensis, extinctions do not correlate with the appearance of modern humans. However, although most of the observed patterns can be attributed to environmental changes, some features – especially failures to recolonize – suggest human involvement.

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