What theories explain the mass extinction of large North American mammals 10,000 to 20,000 years ago?

LATE PLEISTOCENE EXTINCTION

2005

Late Pleistocene Extinction

Introduction

Within their study , scientists have long discovered that to understand present life forms there is a significant need to comprehend life in the past . There are more to study about life than just observing the living Life started millions of years ago , and trough artifacts and fossils we have learned that there are unlimited numbers of species that have once lived and extinct above our planet . One of the most popular discussions of the subject is the Megafauna . It is popular for

several reasons First , it is popular because of the magnificence to have animals with that structure and size living relatively close to our lifetime (about 10 to 15 thousand years ago . Many of the discovered artifacts and fossils are in good and preferable conditions for empirical studies Second , it is popular because of its mysterious disappearance within the late Pleistocene epoch

For decades , scientists have tried to unravel the mystery of life 's birth and extinction . Most of the study ended up with endless debates and with various contradictions of empirical evidences . Even Darwin 's theory of evolution is now being protested because of new discoveries and logical reasoning that enlarge the logical gaps within the theory Similar debates and logical contradiction of empirical evidence are what also happened within discussion of the late Pleistocene extinction There are various theories developing within the science community Each is holding on to their own `indisputable ' evidences or logic . New and more empirical studies are still being performed in the purpose of resulting a conclusive theory to explain the Megafauna Extinction

Within this short elaboration , we will describe the strongest theories that have attempted to explain the Late Pleistocene Extinction . For the very least , this literature review would describe the current condition of the debate and could be use as a logical basic for further theoretical development

Late Pleistocene Extinction

II .1 Stages of Time

In the field of geology , scientists have divided the planet into stages of time . To properly understand where exactly the event occurred in the past , it is better to shortly elaborate this subject . According to the geological science , time on earth is divided into two large stages

The Precambrian Eon , which started about 4 ,600 million years and ended about 500 million years ago

The Phanerozoic Eon , which consist of 500 million years of time since the end of the Precambrian eon until today (Geological Time-Scale , 1996

There is so little that we know about the Precambrian Eon due to unavailability of our scientific method to draw empirical conclusions from such a distant time . Thus , scientific study of the planet is more popular within the Phanerozoic Eon . The Phanerozoic eon is divided into shorter periods . Era is a period consists of hundreds of millions of years . Period is a period consists of aversely 20 or 30 millions of years . Epoch consists of 1 to 10 millions of years . The most recent epoch is the Holocene epoch 10 thousand...