Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests • Hacker News Board

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#41

Post by erulabs » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

pmayrgundter wrote: post #28

pmayrgundter wrote: post #10

Seems that Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis might fit these observations too. "We obtained radiocarbon dates on 172 specimens from seven extinct and one extant species... spanning 15.6 to 10.0 thousand calendar years before present (ka)." YDIH event is estimated at 12900 BP and includes vast wildfires in its scenario, including in North America. Contrast that with the idea that humans have been in Sapiens form for 200…

A little more reading.. "All extinct mammals dated in this study have last occurrence dates older than 13.00 ka, with a modeled extirpation time estimate across all taxa of 13.07 to 12.89 ka [using the Gaussian-Resampled Inverse-Weighted McInerney (GRIMW) extinction estimator" Even tighter bound than my comment and still a tight fit around 12900. Figure 1 in their paper shows this as well. In other news, there was re…

What’s more intriguing to me beyond the YDIH is that clearly something wild happened during the Younger Dryas period, impact or not.

Regardless of what caused the dramatic fluctuations in temperature, wildfires, ocean levels (floods) and megafauna, the fluctuations did occur, and mark the beginning of human civilization as we know it, even though we also know Homo Sapiens existed long before this period.

To imagine a period potentially as short as 100 years where the world went from unbearably cold at its warmest to the perpetual summer world we live in now and mega predators simply vanished… if I lived through that period I’d also tell my children to amass resources urgently (and tell stories of the hell world we came from). Who knows how long this insanely human friendly world might last!

The idea that our species oldest stories might be about catastrophic climate change is absolutely humbling.

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#42

Post by rralian » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #25

gamblor956 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both things can be true: that ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, and that sea level rise cause a specific local species to go extinct when its habitat was fully flooded.

So why doesn't the Western media still push the discourse of sea-level rise and "NYC is going to get drowned any minute now!"?

I don’t understand your point. It seems to be that Western media is somehow biased, but I’m not sure in what way. I’m pretty confident that global temperatures will continue to rise and that sea levels will rise and cause massive problems for coastal populations over my lifetime. But I’m mostly consuming Western media. Do you disagree with these points? And what non-Western media do you feel is more correct?

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#43

Post by pmayrgundter » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

erulabs wrote: post #41

pmayrgundter wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little more reading.. "All extinct mammals dated in this study have last occurrence dates older than 13.00 ka, with a modeled extirpation time estimate across all taxa of 13.07 to 12.89 ka [using the Gaussian-Resampled Inverse-Weighted McInerney (GRIMW) extinction estimator" Even tighter bound than my comment and still a tight fit around 12900. Figure 1 in their paper shows this as well. In other news, there was re…

What’s more intriguing to me beyond the YDIH is that clearly something wild happened during the Younger Dryas period, impact or not. Regardless of what caused the dramatic fluctuations in temperature, wildfires, ocean levels (floods) and megafauna, the fluctuations did occur, and mark the beginning of human civilization as we know it, even though we also know Homo Sapiens existed long before this period. To imagine a…

Nicely put!

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#44

Post by celtoid » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

pmayrgundter wrote: post #10

Seems that Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis might fit these observations too. "We obtained radiocarbon dates on 172 specimens from seven extinct and one extant species... spanning 15.6 to 10.0 thousand calendar years before present (ka)." YDIH event is estimated at 12900 BP and includes vast wildfires in its scenario, including in North America. Contrast that with the idea that humans have been in Sapiens form for 200…

Antonio Zamora has done some research in the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis and the Carolina Bays of North America. He's worth the gander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npXY8mu2hhU&list=PLmd4S3n7Pl...

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#45

Post by bendbro » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

candiddevmike wrote: post #21

gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think some of those humans hunted in Australia? They would travel to a burnt forest (or set fire to one) and then walk around eating the cooked animals until they'd rotted or been eaten, and then move on.

And we still haven't outgrown that behavior. We as a species keep burning the proverbial forests to get an easy win.

We are maturing. We will mature. We grow up with heroes these days. Thanks to intrepid companies like Disney who, and despite polluting right wingers best efforts, we have a trove of emotional education material for our next generation. Marvel and Harry Potter are the two greatest inventions of the past 100 years- even more than the mRNA vaccine.

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#46

Post by dagaci » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #33

myshpa wrote: post #8

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Extincti... Humans were the reason, on all continents. https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammal-decline "By around 10,000 years ago we see a huge decline of wild mammals. It’s hard to give a precise estimate of the size of these losses millennia ago, but they were large: likely in the range of 25% to 50%." "It wasn’t just that we lost a lot of mammals. It was almost e…

Would be interesting if the myth of Dragons breathing fire was because we used fire to kill the largest/scariest megafauna.

We probably used fire to cook them with, and probably cause a lot of accidental fires in the process ;) Also bare in mind that except for africa those megafauna would have been relatively tame and way too unsuspecting of meat eating humans.

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#47

Post by scythe » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

pmayrgundter wrote: post #10

Seems that Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis might fit these observations too. "We obtained radiocarbon dates on 172 specimens from seven extinct and one extant species... spanning 15.6 to 10.0 thousand calendar years before present (ka)." YDIH event is estimated at 12900 BP and includes vast wildfires in its scenario, including in North America. Contrast that with the idea that humans have been in Sapiens form for 200…

I would suggest reading the high-ranked Google Scholar results rather than a highly fraught and questionably influenced Wikipedia talk page or a blog by a highly opinionated author.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=younger+dryas+impact+hyp...

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#48

Post by MrGuts » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

Dude, I wake up, turn on the radio, and feel like an extinct megafauna every morning.

I'm sure my skull will end up in a closet at the office and taken out every now and again to confer on an old codebase.

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#49

Post by ygjb » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:45 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #25

gamblor956 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both things can be true: that ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, and that sea level rise cause a specific local species to go extinct when its habitat was fully flooded.

So why doesn't the Western media still push the discourse of sea-level rise and "NYC is going to get drowned any minute now!"?

Because rising sea levels doesn't get clicks anymore, but if you read actual literature on the topic, there are ongoing concerns and considerations. On a more practical level, it's not a major North American or European city, so it doesn't capture Western media's attention, but the Republic of Kiribati[1] has an estimated Kiribati is a canary in a coal mine for climate change related activity in coastal regions. The government of that nation has very progressively purchased land in Fiji, and presumably in other places to aid with resettlement efforts. There have been legal tests (and denials of claims) for at least one person claiming to be a climate refugee from Kiribati. Even before the sea levels rise, the arable land and liveable areas will be wiped out.

This isn't theoretical, it just isn't directly affecting (yet) the exceedingly wealthy, major western cities, or white folks, so it doesn't get as much press.

Some other areas that are starting to recognize the impacts of rising sea levels include Kolkata, Guangzhou, Miami, New York, and more directly personally affecting me, Vancouver! Unfortunately the main point of recognition is that significant portions of these cities will be below sea level at some point in the next century, barring solutions like seawalls, and other methods to try to save them. It's been almost 20 years since the levees failed in NOLA, but it hasn't stopped people thinking we can hold back the ocean. Things are going to be crazy in the next couple of decades.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati

Re: Ancient fires drove large mammals extinct, study suggests

#50

Post by candiddevmike » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

bendbro wrote: post #45

candiddevmike wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we still haven't outgrown that behavior. We as a species keep burning the proverbial forests to get an easy win.

We are maturing. We will mature. We grow up with heroes these days. Thanks to intrepid companies like Disney who, and despite polluting right wingers best efforts, we have a trove of emotional education material for our next generation. Marvel and Harry Potter are the two greatest inventions of the past 100 years- even more than the mRNA vaccine.

I don't quite follow. Marvel teaches folks to punch their way through problems, and Harry Potter teaches people it's OK to be manipulated by adults because it's your destiny.