Middens

What caused the extinction of so many animals at or near the end of the Pleistocene? Was it overkill by human hunters, the result of a major climatic change or was it just a part of some massive evolutionary turnover? Questions such as these have plagued scientists for over one hundred years and are still being heatedly debated today. Quaternary Extinctions presents the latest and most comprehensive examination of these questions. Geological Magazine-- May be regarded as a kind of standard encyclopedia for Pleistocene vertebrate paleontology for years to come. American Scientist-- Should be read by paleobiologists, biologists, wildlife managers, ecologists, archeologists, and anyone concerned about the ongoing extinction of plants and animals. Science-- Uncommonly readable and varied for watchers of paleontology and the rise of humankind. Scientific American-- Represents a quantum leap in our knowledge of Pleistocene and Holocene palaeobiology...Many volumes on our bookshelves are destined to gather dust rather than attention. But not this one. Nature-- Two strong impressions prevail when first looking into this epic compendium. One is the judicious balance of views that range over the whole continuum between monocausal, cultural, or environmental explanations. The second is that both the data base and theoretical sophistication of the protagonists in the debate have improved by a quantum leap since 1967. American Anthropologist--

@book{openalexw2015313236,
    author = "Martin, Paul S. and Klein, Richard G.",
    title = "Quaternary extinctions: a prehistoric revolution",
    year = "1984",
    abstract = "What caused the extinction of so many animals at or near the end of the Pleistocene? Was it overkill by human hunters, the result of a major climatic change or was it just a part of some massive evolutionary turnover? Questions such as these have plagued scientists for over one hundred years and are still being heatedly debated today. Quaternary Extinctions presents the latest and most comprehensive examination of these questions. Geological Magazine-- May be regarded as a kind of standard encyclopedia for Pleistocene vertebrate paleontology for years to come. American Scientist-- Should be read by paleobiologists, biologists, wildlife managers, ecologists, archeologists, and anyone concerned about the ongoing extinction of plants and animals. Science-- Uncommonly readable and varied for watchers of paleontology and the rise of humankind. Scientific American-- Represents a quantum leap in our knowledge of Pleistocene and Holocene palaeobiology...Many volumes on our bookshelves are destined to gather dust rather than attention. But not this one. Nature-- Two strong impressions prevail when first looking into this epic compendium. One is the judicious balance of views that range over the whole continuum between monocausal, cultural, or environmental explanations. The second is that both the data base and theoretical sophistication of the protagonists in the debate have improved by a quantum leap since 1967. American Anthropologist--",
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@book{trotter1984moas1,
    author = "Trotter, M. M. and McCulloch, B",
    title = "Moas, Man and Middens, in Martin, P. S., and Klein, R. G., eds., Quaternary Extinctions",
    year = "1984",
    publisher = "Tuscon, The University of Arizona Press, p. 708-740",
    note = "talkorigins\_source = {true}; raw\_reference = {Trotter, M. M., and McCulloch, B., 1984, Moas, Man and Middens, in Martin, P. S., and Klein, R. G., eds., Quaternary Extinctions: Tuscon, The University of Arizona Press, p. 708-740.}"
}

@article{butzer1985biological,
    author = "Butzer, Karl",
    title = "Biological Anthropology: Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution. Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "American Anthropologist",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1985.87.4.02a00670",
    doi = "10.1525/aa.1985.87.4.02a00670",
    number = "4",
    openalex = "W2140284372",
    pages = "976-978",
    volume = "87"
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@article{doi10108003036758198510416849,
    author = "King, Carolyn M.",
    title = "Quaternary Extinctions: a prehistoric revolution, edited by Paul S.Martin and Richard E.Klein. University of Arizona Press, Tucson; pp. 892, 1984. US$65.00, cased.",
    year = "1985",
    journal = "Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.1985.10416849",
    doi = "10.1080/03036758.1985.10416849",
    openalex = "W2023924264"
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@article{crofi1986quaternary,
    author = "Crofi, Lisa K.",
    title = "Quaternary Extinctions. A Prehistoric Revolution. Edited by Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1984, 892 pp., $65.",
    year = "1986",
    journal = "Quaternary Research",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(86)90066-9",
    doi = "10.1016/0033-5894(86)90066-9",
    number = "2",
    openalex = "W303959014",
    pages = "264-265",
    volume = "25",
    references = "doi1023072412687, doi1023072798599"
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@article{fortelius1986martin,
    author = "FORTELIUS, MIKAEL",
    title = "Martin, Paul S. \& Klein. Richard G. (eds.) 1984: Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution",
    year = "1986",
    journal = "Boreas",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3885.1986.tb00076.x",
    doi = "10.1111/j.1502-3885.1986.tb00076.x",
    number = "2",
    openalex = "W1966430807",
    pages = "136-136",
    volume = "15"
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@article{steele1986quaternary,
    author = "Steele, D. Gentry",
    title = "Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution, Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein, Ed., The University of Arizona Press, $65.00, 1984",
    year = "1986",
    journal = "Geoarchaeology",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.3340010113",
    doi = "10.1002/gea.3340010113",
    number = "1",
    openalex = "W1999894482",
    pages = "92-94",
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Between fifty and ten thousand years ago, most large mammals became extinct everywhere except Africa. Slow-breeding animals also were hard hit, regardless of size. This unusual extinction of large and slow-breeding animals provides some of the strongest support for a human contribution to their extinction and is consistent with various human hunting models, but it is difficult to explain by models relying solely on environmental change. It is an oversimplification, however, to say that a wave of hunting-induced extinctions swept continents immediately after first human contact. Results from recent studies suggest that humans precipitated extinction in many parts of the globe through combined direct (hunting) and perhaps indirect (competition, habitat alteration) impacts, but that the timing and geography of extinction might have been different and the worldwide magnitude less, had not climatic change coincided with human impacts in many places.

@article{doi101146annurevecolsys34011802132415,
    author = "Koch, Paul L. and Barnosky, Anthony D.",
    title = "Late Quaternary Extinctions: State of the Debate",
    year = "2006",
    journal = "Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics",
    abstract = "Between fifty and ten thousand years ago, most large mammals became extinct everywhere except Africa. Slow-breeding animals also were hard hit, regardless of size. This unusual extinction of large and slow-breeding animals provides some of the strongest support for a human contribution to their extinction and is consistent with various human hunting models, but it is difficult to explain by models relying solely on environmental change. It is an oversimplification, however, to say that a wave of hunting-induced extinctions swept continents immediately after first human contact. Results from recent studies suggest that humans precipitated extinction in many parts of the globe through combined direct (hunting) and perhaps indirect (competition, habitat alteration) impacts, but that the timing and geography of extinction might have been different and the worldwide magnitude less, had not climatic change coincided with human impacts in many places.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415",
    doi = "10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.34.011802.132415",
    openalex = "W2107525565",
    references = "doi101016s0277379102000264, doi101017s0094837300008927, doi101038nature02098, doi10108003115510408619286, doi101126science1101074, doi101126science1101476, doi1043249781315126470, openalexw2015313236"
}

Large herbivorous vertebrates have strong interactions with vegetation, affecting the structure, composition and dynamics of plant communities in many ways. Living large herbivores are a small remnant of the assemblages of giants that existed in most terrestrial ecosystems 50,000 years ago. The extinction of so many large herbivores may well have triggered large changes in plant communities. In several parts of the world, palaeoecological studies suggest that extinct megafauna once maintained vegetation openness, and in wooded landscapes created mosaics of different structural types of vegetation with high habitat and species diversity. Following megafaunal extinction, these habitats reverted to more dense and uniform formations. Megafaunal extinction also led to changes in fire regimes and increased fire frequency due to accumulation of uncropped plant material, but there is a great deal of variation in post-extinction changes in fire. Plant communities that once interacted with extinct large herbivores still contain many species with obsolete defences against browsing and non-functional adaptations for seed dispersal. Such plants may be in decline, and, as a result, many plant communities may be in various stages of a process of relaxation from megafauna-conditioned to megafauna-naive states. Understanding the past role of giant herbivores provides fundamental insight into the history, dynamics and conservation of contemporary plant communities.

@article{doi101098rspb20081921,
    author = "Johnson, Christopher N.",
    title = "Ecological consequences of Late Quaternary extinctions of megafauna",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences",
    abstract = "Large herbivorous vertebrates have strong interactions with vegetation, affecting the structure, composition and dynamics of plant communities in many ways. Living large herbivores are a small remnant of the assemblages of giants that existed in most terrestrial ecosystems 50,000 years ago. The extinction of so many large herbivores may well have triggered large changes in plant communities. In several parts of the world, palaeoecological studies suggest that extinct megafauna once maintained vegetation openness, and in wooded landscapes created mosaics of different structural types of vegetation with high habitat and species diversity. Following megafaunal extinction, these habitats reverted to more dense and uniform formations. Megafaunal extinction also led to changes in fire regimes and increased fire frequency due to accumulation of uncropped plant material, but there is a great deal of variation in post-extinction changes in fire. Plant communities that once interacted with extinct large herbivores still contain many species with obsolete defences against browsing and non-functional adaptations for seed dispersal. Such plants may be in decline, and, as a result, many plant communities may be in various stages of a process of relaxation from megafauna-conditioned to megafauna-naive states. Understanding the past role of giant herbivores provides fundamental insight into the history, dynamics and conservation of contemporary plant communities.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1921",
    doi = "10.1098/rspb.2008.1921",
    openalex = "W2164545098",
    references = "doi101016s0277379100000998, doi101038nature04604"
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@article{mountain2009martin,
    author = "Mountain, Raymond and Shapiro, Alan E.",
    title = "Martin Jesse Klein",
    year = "2009",
    journal = "Physics Today",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3265244",
    doi = "10.1063/1.3265244",
    number = "11",
    openalex = "W1992631306",
    pages = "64-65",
    volume = "62"
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To his friends, colleagues, and students, Martin Klein was a gentle and modest man of extraordinary integrity whose stellar accomplishments garnered himmany honors. I sketch his life and career, in which he transformed himself from a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Case Institute of Technology into a historian of physics while on leave at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Leiden and then pursued this field full time at Yale University.

@article{openalexw2741562834,
    author = "Hu, Danian",
    title = "In Appreciation Martin J. Klein: From Physicist to Historian",
    year = "2012",
    abstract = "To his friends, colleagues, and students, Martin Klein was a gentle and modest man of extraordinary integrity whose stellar accomplishments garnered himmany honors. I sketch his life and career, in which he transformed himself from a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Case Institute of Technology into a historian of physics while on leave at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Leiden and then pursued this field full time at Yale University.",
    openalex = "W2741562834",
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@incollection{clemens2013mammals,
    author = "Clemens, William A.",
    title = "Mammals (Pre-Quaternary), Extinctions of",
    year = "2013",
    booktitle = "Encyclopedia of Biodiversity",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-384719-5.00153-2",
    doi = "10.1016/b978-0-12-384719-5.00153-2",
    openalex = "W145849594",
    pages = "1-9",
    references = "alvarez1980extraterrestrial, doi101016s0169534703000934, doi101038nature06277, doi101038nature09678, doi101038nature10291, doi101093oso97801985491780010001, doi101126science1229237, doi101126science1230492, doi1023073515466, doi105860choice293880"
}

Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.

@article{doi101093bioscibiz105,
    author = "Swift, Jillian and Bunce, Michael and Dortch, Joe and Douglass, Kristina and Faith, J. Tyler and Yates, James A. Fellows and Field, Judith and Haberle, Simon and Jacob, Eileen and Johnson, Christopher N. and Lindsey, Emily and Lorenzen, Eline D. and Louys, Julien and Miller, Gifford H. and Mychajliw, Alexis M. and Slon, Viviane and Villavicencio, Natalia A. and Waters, Michael R. and Welker, Frido and Wood, Rachel and Petraglia, Michael D. and Boivin, Nicole and Roberts, Patrick",
    title = "Micro Methods for Megafauna: Novel Approaches to Late Quaternary Extinctions and Their Contributions to Faunal Conservation in the Anthropocene",
    year = "2019",
    journal = "BioScience",
    abstract = "Drivers of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions are relevant to modern conservation policy in a world of growing human population density, climate change, and faunal decline. Traditional debates tend toward global solutions, blaming either dramatic climate change or dispersals of Homo sapiens to new regions. Inherent limitations to archaeological and paleontological data sets often require reliance on scant, poorly resolved lines of evidence. However, recent developments in scientific technologies allow for more local, context-specific approaches. In the present article, we highlight how developments in five such methodologies (radiocarbon approaches, stable isotope analysis, ancient DNA, ancient proteomics, microscopy) have helped drive detailed analysis of specific megafaunal species, their particular ecological settings, and responses to new competitors or predators, climate change, and other external phenomena. The detailed case studies of faunal community composition, extinction chronologies, and demographic trends enabled by these methods examine megafaunal extinctions at scales appropriate for practical understanding of threats against particular species in their habitats today.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz105",
    doi = "10.1093/biosci/biz105",
    openalex = "W2978980602",
    references = "doi101002rcm4316, doi101006jasc19960047, doi101007s004420050865, doi101017s0033822200066388, doi101038nature10574, doi101038nature12921, doi101038s415860180455x, doi101126science1101074, doi101126scienceaam9695, openalexw2015313236"
}

@misc{crossref2022quaternary,
    title = "Quaternary Extinctions",
    year = "2022",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv264f91j",
    doi = "10.2307/j.ctv264f91j",
    openalex = "W4206297932"
}

hominins prior to the Late Pleistocene. Subsequently, we synthesize the evidence for ecosystem consequences of megafauna extinctions and discuss the implications for conservation and restoration. A broad range of evidence indicates that the megafauna extinctions have elicited profound changes to ecosystem structure and functioning. The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions thereby represent an early, large-scale human-driven environmental transformation, constituting a progenitor of the Anthropocene, where humans are now a major player in planetary functioning. Finally, we conclude that megafauna restoration via trophic rewilding can be expected to have positive effects on biodiversity across varied Anthropocene settings.

@article{doi101017ext20244,
    author = "Svenning, Jens‐Christian and Lemoine, Rhys T. and Bergman, Juraj and Buitenwerf, Robert and le Roux, Elizabeth and Lundgren, Erick and Mungi, Ninad Avinash and Pedersen, Rasmus Østergaard",
    title = "The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene",
    year = "2024",
    journal = "Cambridge Prisms Extinction",
    abstract = "hominins prior to the Late Pleistocene. Subsequently, we synthesize the evidence for ecosystem consequences of megafauna extinctions and discuss the implications for conservation and restoration. A broad range of evidence indicates that the megafauna extinctions have elicited profound changes to ecosystem structure and functioning. The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions thereby represent an early, large-scale human-driven environmental transformation, constituting a progenitor of the Anthropocene, where humans are now a major player in planetary functioning. Finally, we conclude that megafauna restoration via trophic rewilding can be expected to have positive effects on biodiversity across varied Anthropocene settings.",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1017/ext.2024.4",
    doi = "10.1017/ext.2024.4",
    openalex = "W4393092471",
    references = "doi101038s41467021274396, doi101111ele13451, doi101371journalpone0150871"
}

@misc{crossrefNoneklein,
    title = "Klein, Martin",
    year = "None",
    url = "https://doi.org/10.1553/0x0001d4b1",
    doi = "10.1553/0x0001d4b1"
}