Ice Age 3

Humans and megafauna coexisted for thousands of years. One of the great questions about

the end of the Ice Age is what caused the extinction of so many large animals. Dozens of species

of megafauna, animals weighing over a hundred pounds, disappeared between 15,000 and 10,000

years ago. In North America alone, over 30 species went extinct,

including mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves,

short-faced bears, and many others. Similar extinctions occurred in South America,

Australia, and northern Europe. The timing of these extinctions is suspicious because they roughly

coincide with the arrival or expansion of human populations in these areas. This has led to