e.,

changes to human–prey population dynamics, human population densities, or other input parameters) do not support the overkill model (see Belovsky, 1998 and Choquenot selleck products and Bowman, 1998). Given that these models disagree in their outcomes and can only provide insights into the relative plausibility of the overkill model, the strongest evidence for overkill comes from the timing of megafaunal extinctions and human colonization. In the Americas, the major megafauna extinction interval coincides with the late Pleistocene arrival of humans about 15,000 years ago (Dillehay, 2000, Meltzer, 2009 and Meltzer et al., 1997). Most of the megafauna were lost by 10,500 years ago or earlier, generally coincident with the regionalization of Paleoindian projectile points, often interpreted as megafauna hunting technologies, in North America. Similarities are seen in Australia with first human colonization at about 50,000 years ago and the extinction of the continental megafauna within 4000 years on the mainland (Gillespie, 2008 and Roberts et al., 2001) and slightly later on Tasmania (Turney et al., 2008). The association of megafauna extinctions and

human arrival in Eurasia is more difficult to demonstrate. Hominins (e.g., Homo erectus, H. heidelbergensis, H. neandertalensis) were present in large parts of Eurasia for roughly two Selleck Protease Inhibitor Library isothipendyl million years, so Eurasian mammals should have co-evolved with hominins in a fashion similar to Martin’s African model. With the first AMH arriving in various parts of Eurasia between about 60,000 and 50,000 years ago, apparently with more sophisticated brains and technologies, AMH may have sparked the first wave of megafaunal extinctions at ∼48,000 years ago ( Barnosky et al., 2004). Overkill opponents argue that the small number of documented megafauna kill sites in the Americas and Australia provides no empirical evidence for the model (Field et al., 2008, Field

et al., 2013, Grayson, 1991, Grayson and Meltzer, 2002 and Mulvaney and Kamminga, 1999). For North America, Grayson and Meltzer (2003) argued that only four extinct genera of megafauna were targeted by humans at 14 archeological sites. In South America, even fewer megafauna kill sites have been found (see Fiedel and Haynes, 2004:123). Australia has produced no clear extinct megafauna kill sites, save one possible site at Cuddie Springs (Field et al., 2002, Field et al., 2008, Field et al., 2013 and Mulvaney and Kamminga, 1999). In both Australia and the Americas, these numbers are based on conservative interpretations of archeological associations, however, and other scholars argue for considerably larger numbers of kill sites.