Late Pleistocene South American megafaunal extinctions associated with rise of Fishtail points and human population

In the 1970s, Paul Martin proposed that big game hunters armed with fluted projectile points colonized the Americas and drove the extinction of megafauna. Around fifty years later, the central role of humans in the extinctions is still debated in North America, but little considered in South America. Here we analyze the temporal dynamics and spatial distribution of South American megafauna and fluted (Fishtail) projectile points (FPP) to evaluate the role of humans in Pleistocene extinctions. We observe a strong relationship between the temporal density and spatial distribution of megafaunal species stratigraphically associated with humans and FPP, as well as with fluctuations in human demography. We propose that direct human predation was the main factor driving the megafaunal decline, with other secondary, co-occurring factors necessary for the collapse of the megafaunal community.

Luciano Prates, S. Ivan Perez