Paul Martin in his writing, Twilight of the mammoths, examines the different viewpoints regarding the extinction of mammals in the late quaternary. He starts with an overview of some ideas for possible reasons of near-time extinctions. For example, some he brought up were disease and even climate change. Martin’s thesis within the reading is that as humans journeyed around the world, they wiped out many of the mammals present therefore humans were the main cause of near-time extinctions through their actions.
Continuing, Martin then looks at the advancement of science. Martin explains that the methods of we had previously were useless for our purposes of measurement-- before the breakthrough of radiocarbon dating, we had that of the research methods of stratigraphy & paleontology. The importance of radiocarbon dating is that we can look at precise extinction periods and from those periods we can see if there was any human migration throughout those areas and thus make connections. Martin especially was interested in this as if he can understand the timing of human arrival, then he can connect those with the arrivals of near-time mammals and use the timings of extinctions for comparison. With the advancement of science came radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon dating made it possible to know approximately when a species went extinct (within a century). It also helps us understand the rate of the extinction—did it occur at one quick flash like when a meteor hits the location or if it was slow and the extinction occurred slowly like something with slow human hunting of an animal over hundreds of years. Martin provides an example of the achievement of radiocarbon dating. His example looks at woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island. Throughout this example, Martin explains how the mammoths on this island had lived longer then any of its range. With the precise timing of extinctions, martin brings up the application of pattern tracing. With pinpoint dates we can draw lines between locations. Martin states the, sweeping of large mammals, “began gradually and inconspicuously in Africa over 2 million years ago, intensified in Europe beginning with the extinction of the Neanderthals in 50000 years ago, hit hard in Australia 40000 to 50000 years ago and exploded in the Americas around 13000 years ago” (pg.50 Martin). This is important as martin believes that there could be no other explanation for this other then the spreading of humans. Martin believes that climate change could not explain the patterns of extinction and points the extinctions at human spreading.
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Continuing on, Martin then switched his view and started to look at climate change. Did climate change cause the extinction of mammals? Martin looks at this question by looking at a point made by O.P Hay a Paleontologist. This individual had said that, in short, if there was climate changes occurring with ice advancing and retreating, where are all the extinction trials. Where are the mammals being hit by the climates forces? These questions brought up by Hay were also questions Martin was seeking as his view on the subject opposes this and if there were answers then they would challenge his point of view.
Continuing on, Martin point out that these “early” faunas were misdated. The dates were actually earlier then what we had in mind. What this then implies by the misdating is that supposable extinctions were towards the start of the quaternary and as time went on it began to pile on top of itself until it made it to near time. Martin at this point has been strong on his thesis of humans being the main cause of extinctions and brings up the point that with misdating of the faunas, it points out the possibility that the entirety of climate change is potential, “bankrupt”. This then adds to Martins point of view as if climatic change would be seen as bankrupt and not a factor then Martin, inexplicitly had just made a point that as the chance of climate change is dismissed then the chance of human activities causing extinctions increases.
Moving on, Martin overall had made out his claims and arguments and he even gave some opposing thoughts like that of climate change. We will now look the last portion of the chapter which includes why Martin believes understanding the extinctions of near time mammals has importance to our species as of current day. To begin, Martin believes it is important to understand what happened to large mammals thousands of years ago because not understanding and not caring about it will make us intolerant and make us underestimate the speed of extinctions with our presence on the planet and our actions to the animals around us. It can also slow down/ stop our actions to preventing potential extinctions of animals in our time and could even change our view of what the state of nature were aiming for should be. Along with why we should understand the reason of extinctions that have occurred thousands of years ago, Martin also believes that humans might have been more aware and conscious of environmental concerns f we had typically large mammals around that look like us humans.For example, Martin brings up large mammals that looked like us vs. a snail and how we would support the large mammals as it looks like us and the snail would be less liked as one of the features of it is it is small and gives the feeling of being insignificant because we cant relate.
Finally, now that we understand Martins view on the topic of near time extinctions and have a general idea of what the article he wrote was about, I will now point out some criticisms I have. To begin, one of the criticisms I have for Martin is there is no direct evidence for human hunting dating as far back as 50000 years ago. We have evidence of weapons use and artistic representations of hunting but for older times we just haven’t found any of the such. Therefore, Martin pointing out extinctions occurring due to human hunting before 50000 years ago is something that shouldn’t be even referenced as a supporting argument. For example, Martin for one of his arguments uses the idea of the sweep of extinctions of large mammals began gradually and “inconspicuously” in Africa over 2 million years ago and moved out from there in a pattern like way. He then states how there is a pattern of human migration around the world and the extinctions of mammals. Martin in this argument is implying that human hunting was the cause of extinctions as animals and human migrated but some of the timelines occurs before the 50000-year mark where no evidence of human hunting is present.
My second criticism of Martins writing is that in many cases he seems to go off the idea of correlation and relates it to being causation. For example, we will use the same example as our first criticism of human migration and the correlation Martin makes here how near time extinctions correlate quite closely with the spread of humanity. This case is precisely correlation. The movement of humans did not cause the extinction of animals—one did not cause the other. I am saying this as Martin then goes on to say, that he believes the main cause of near time extinctions were from that of the movement of humans along with mammals and their extinctions that had came along. Martin had only used one piece of information to back up this claim he just made of the migration of humans from Africa 2 million years ago and how as they migrated, extinctions seemed to correlate. This also directly relates to the first criticism and how Martin believes that as humans migrated with mammals, they automatically hunted them. Again, we have no proof of hunting before 50000 years ago so jumping from correlation of mammal extinction to humans migrating with them and somehow hunting bring them to extinction is absurd.
In conclusion, Martin is firm on his stand that humans are the main cause of near-time mammal extinctions. Furthermore, Martin believes the patterns of mammal extinction relate to that of human spreading, and he believes that climate change is just not a good reason for mammal extinctions and there is no real proof to back it up or climate change is just “bankrupt”. Criticisms I had for Martin in my option were his correlation jump to causations for no real reason and his idea that human hunting was the cause of extinctions before 50000 years ago regardless of the fact that we have no direct evidence for human hunting dating as far back as 50000 years ago.
Citing(s):
- Martin, P. S. (2005). Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice age extinctions and the rewilding of America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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