Neanderthals Hunted Giant Elephants Much Larger Than The Ones Today

[Warpy]

4. Even megafauna not susceptible to active hunting disappeared

in the Younger Dryas event. Loss of megafauna was planet wide, extending to Australia and New Zealand, as well as N. America, Asia and Europe.

Hunting might have helped deliver the final coup de grace on them, but their numbers had started to dwindle, especially in North America, before sufficient numbers of humans arrived.

What is known for certain is that there were megafauna below the black mat marking the beginning of the Younger Dryas and none above it. With them went the Clovis culture in North America, the survivors shifting their hunting practices to smaller prey.

So we're not wholly responsible for the disappearance of giant and even large species. While we likely finished off the few stragglers during a period of climatic catastrophe they wouldn't have survived in any case, we were incapable of doing it planet wide. We just didn't have sufficient numbers to accomplish it all by ourselves.