The extinction of the woolly mammoth has long been attributed to overhunting by early humans, a theory supported by three main arguments. First, archaeological evidence shows that human populations expanded into mammoth habitats in Eurasia and North America around the same time as the mammoth’s decline, suggesting a causal link. Second, spear points and butchering sites with mammoth remains indicate that humans actively hunted these animals, and such hunting pressure could have driven small, isolated populations to extinction. Third, the rapid climate warming at the end of the last Ice Age, while often cited as an alternative cause, actually benefited mammoths by expanding grasslands in some regions, yet mammoths still disappeared, implying that human hunting, not climate, was the decisive factor.
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The lecture challenges the overhunting theory, arguing that climate change was the primary cause of woolly mammoth extinction. First, the timing of human arrival does not align with extinction events. In many regions, humans coexisted with mammoths for thousands of years before the mammoths vanished, which contradicts the idea that hunting quickly drove them extinct. Second, while butchered mammoth sites exist, they are rare and often show evidence of scavenging rather than active hunting. Moreover, human populations were too small to exert the necessary hunting pressure across vast continents. Third, the lecture points out that climate change at the end of the Ice Age was not simply warming. It caused dramatic shifts in vegetation, reducing the open grasslands that mammoths relied on and replacing them with forests and tundra, which offered less food. These habitat changes, not human hunters, explain the mammoth’s decline and eventual extinction.
📝 写作提示 Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific points made in the reading passage.
