It seems some species of megafauna may have subsist for much longer than antecedently assumed .
For a long time , the overall consensus has been that mammalian megafauna – giant mammal that stray the Earth in the past , include species likemammoths , giant sloths andsabertoothed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – endure nonextant at the start of the Holocene . This is our currentgeological epoch , which started around 11,700 years ago , at the end of the last major frozen age .
However , some late study have prevail fossil evidence that challenges this consensus . In particular , the discovery that flocculent mammoth were still alive4,000 years agohelped undermine this idea . Now researchers have found othermegafauna specimens , including giant slothfulness and camel - like animals , that last in South America up to around 3,500 years ago .
This grounds raise questions about what really led to the satellite ’s most recent large animal quenching while also showing that it was not a homogenous issue .
The research was deal by Fábio Henrique Cortes Faria , a geologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , and colleague . The teamcarbon datedfragments of tooth from different megafauna specie found at two dodo sites in Brazil ( one from a location in Itapipoca and one from the Rio Miranda valley ) . From among the eight specimens they date , two teeth – one belonging to an out genus of American llama calledPalaeolama majorwhile the other came from a camel - like creature that had the nozzle of a tapir , calledXenorhinotherium bahiense – were found to be much younger than expect .
“ The ages obtained shew that the latest ages of megafauna appearance in Brazil are associated with the middle and late Holocene , ” the authors write .
If these animals were alert in Brazil at this time , then they would have lived side - by - side withhumanswho go far in South America sometime between 20,000 and 17,000 year ago . This suggests a much longer point of coexistence , which challenges be interpretations of what caused their eventual experimental extinction .
“ In South America , ” the source explain , “ the quenching of megafauna has been attribute to many case , clime / environmental change or even the synergy between these speculation . ”
One particular account , sleep with as the Overkill and Blitzkrieg theory , hold that South America ’s megafauna were forthwith impacted byhuman huntingand possibly landscape change ; however , the body of mount grounds would suggest otherwise .
“ The ages obtained in this psychoanalysis , together with archaeologic evidence , demonstrate that the Overkill and Blitzkieg theory are not plausible explanation for the extinction of South American megafauna . ”
Instead , it is possible that theextinctionevent was a much more drawn - out process , which did not fall out at the same sentence in all places . It is possible that this region of Brazil was a sort of refuge for some megafauna species who know longer than others .
“ The study clearly indicate that the famed Pleistocene - Holocene extinction was a long - full term operation of variety departure of the Pleistocene mammals , ” Ismar de Souza Carvalho , one of the researcher who worked on this study , toldNew Scientist .
The study is published in theJournal of South American Earth Sciences .
