The world held many
species of large, wonderful creatures that became extinct at the end
of the Pleistocene Era, which concluded around 10,500 years ago. At
that point, the world entered the era known to science as the
Holocene.
The Holocene was the
era during which humans began to dominate the globe. Agriculture was
developed in Eurasia, the Fertile Crescent and in the Americas.
Written language was developed and early literature that has survived
in some form today was written about 4,600 years ago. The pyramids
were built. The Biblical city of Jericho in Palestine was founded
around 11,000 years ago. A world that we would recognize as
civilization begins in the early Holocene.
Some of that
Pleistocene megafauna hung on while our ancestors were creating the
building blocks of the modern world. Generations after the
Pleistocene ended, they were still alive and very real to the people
who encountered them. Counter to modern impressions, our ancestors
may have encountered these animals. They lasted longer than you
think.
Glyptodon was
a genus of giant armadillos in South America that included species
which were literally the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. We have good
archaeological evidence of humans using empty glyptodont scutes as
shelter during bad weather. Humans definitely co-existed with these
animals for thousands of years. They disappeared as recently as 9,700
years ago.
At this time,
potatoes and squash were being developed as domesticated crops in the
Americas where Glyptodon roamed. Wheat and barley were being
domesticated in the fertile crescent. Goats, sheep and cattle were
also being domesticated.
Megaloceros
Giganateus, sometimes called "the Irish elk," drops off
of the fossil record around 7,700 years ago.
Megaloceros had a
massive rack of antlers, which like all deer had to be regrown each
year before being shed after the mating season.
By this time, there
were around forty million humans living on the Earth, enabled by the
Neolithic Revolution. People had tamed the aurochs -- wild bovids of
Eurasia that survived into modern times through domestication -- and
had started
making cheese in Poland. People were probably
making wine only a few hundred years later.
We don't know why
megalorceros died out. It was a widespread species, extending across
Europe and Asia and into Japan. Lasting millions of years across such
a large area, it is unlikely that it could have been so successful if
its huge antlers were a deadly encumbrance in forests, despite such
speculation.
The gomphotheres
were a group of proboscideans
which are distant relatives of modern elephants and of mammoths and
mastodons. They thrived in the Americas with their strange,
downturned tusks. Overshadowed by their more iconic relatives, they
were an important, common and widespread group of animals for
millions of years.
The last of them
made it until
at least 6,060 years ago in Colombia.
The Kingdom of Egypt
was established in this era. Agriculture was spreading across
Eurasia. Cuneiform writing was being developed. Astronomy, civil law,
sail boats, and the potter's wheel were invented.
Giant sloths
were a group of species from South America that radiated into North
America after the Great American Interchange about a million years
ago when an area of seabed thrust upwards and became the Isthamus of
Panama, connecting the North and South American continents. Some
looked like bipedal giants out of Lord of the Rings. Others were
smaller, but still dwarfed humans. Some species colonized islands in
the Caribbean and thrived until only 4,200 years ago.
On the other side of
the world, painted pottery was about to be mass-produced in Sumerian
cities with populations of over 10,000 each.
Domestication of llamas in the Americas had started.
Domestication of llamas in the Americas had started.
Toxodon bones
were last dated in South America about 5,000 years ago.
This was once a large group of many species found throughout South America. It was an herbivore close to 9 feet long and probably weighed over 3,000 pounds. We don't know much about it's lifestyle and scientists debate whether it was terrestrial or had a semi-aquatic lifestyle like a modern hippopotamus.
This was once a large group of many species found throughout South America. It was an herbivore close to 9 feet long and probably weighed over 3,000 pounds. We don't know much about it's lifestyle and scientists debate whether it was terrestrial or had a semi-aquatic lifestyle like a modern hippopotamus.
When the last known
Toxodon died, Stonehenge was being built. Troy was founded. "Ötzi,"
a man frozen in an Italian glacier, was killed with an arrow to his
back which would not be noticed until 2001, ten years after his body
had been collected by scientists.
The mammoths of
Wrangel Island, off the coast
of Siberia, hold a
special place in the imagination. They left the world only about
4,000 years ago, while their distant relatives on St. Paul Island
(Alaska) date to only 5,600 years ago.
The Wrangel Island
mammoths probably arrived there during the last ice age, over land
and ice (sea levels were much lower at the time, due to water being
trapped in glaciers and the poles). The plant community is still more
broader there than it is in most other regions at that latitude, and
the biome that mammoths depended on may have persisted on Wrangel for
longer than it did elsewhere as the planet warmed, providing the
animals with a robust source of forage.
There were only
around 300 mammoths eking out a living on Wrangel towards the end.
While that was happening, horses were being domesticated in Eurasia.
The Bronze Age was starting in China. The first Minoan palace on
Crete was built. The Indus Valley Civilization was actually in
decline at this point. They had already long since been constructing
water supply systems and houses of baked bricks along planned urban
grids like something we'd make in Simcity.
The Aurochs
was the ancestor of modern cattle. With its lithe, strong figure and
lyre-like horns, the aurochs dominated Eurasia as a very important
herbivore as it was locally domesticated throughout it's range into
regional varieties of cattle. The last wild aurochs lived in a royal
Polish forest in the 1630's where they were protected but isolated
and couldn't quite make it.
Aurochs were probably a species of the open grasslands for most of their history, while open European grasslands were transformed into farmland. Their restriction to forest provided them with royal protection but also inadequate nutrition while inbreeding closed in.
Yet their descendants have survived in the form of modern cattle and a major back-breeding program that cross-breeds cattle with throw-back characteristics of aurochs promises to restore a new version of the species. At least for this late-surviving species of Pleistocene megafauna, their relationship with humans might also provide their renewal.
Aurochs were probably a species of the open grasslands for most of their history, while open European grasslands were transformed into farmland. Their restriction to forest provided them with royal protection but also inadequate nutrition while inbreeding closed in.
Yet their descendants have survived in the form of modern cattle and a major back-breeding program that cross-breeds cattle with throw-back characteristics of aurochs promises to restore a new version of the species. At least for this late-surviving species of Pleistocene megafauna, their relationship with humans might also provide their renewal.
Many groups of
Pleistocene megafuana lasted well into what we think of as an age of
civilization. While it is easy to mourn the gomphotheres and
megaloceros that our recent ancestors saw, it is still pretty special
that we can see the creatures like the rhinoceros and the elephant
and the musk ox. Without devoted and well-funded efforts to protect
these modern Pleistocene survivors, this could be one of the last
generations to remember them.
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