Controversies In Archaeology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Controversies In Archaeology - Essay role modelAt the end of Pleistocene period, these animals had completely disappeared or extinct. In Asia and Europe, a similar pattern of defunctness of Pleistocene mammal took place where lions, bear, and woolly rhino disappeared (Fagan 47). The central question that archeologist and paleontologists ask is what coifd the quenching of these large mammals in such a short time span? Some archaeologists, scientists, and paleontologists have proposed that the last of these mammals can be attributed to the climatic changes while others such as Paul Martin have attributed it to the mankind cause or hunting overkill. Martins explanation of the disappearance of the largest mammals towards the end of Pleistocene period has not legitimate endorsement from mating American Pleistocene archaeological and paleontological records. It has been a controversial topic in archaeology since the 1860s with some archaeologists arguing that human hunters were the ones responsible for the defunctness of the Pleistocene mammals. Currently, the issue of human hunters universe blamed for the disappearance of the worlds biggest creatures has been disputed with scholars from North America, Western Europe, and Australia arguing that mammal extinction during the Pleistocene period cannot be blamed on the overkill (Meltzer and Grayson 586). The theory of overkill has been disputed because of lack of sufficient evidence. Paleontologists and archaeologists press that the overkill theory was entirely based on beliefs or faith rather than on science and concrete evidence from animals remains. Archaeologists such as Paul Martin has attributed the extinction of the worlds largest mammals to human causes as he asserts that their extinctions were because of impact of human hunting in North America. Further, Martin argues that the climatic changes during the interglacial periods did not go out to the demise of the large mammals such as Mammoth at the end of the Pleistocene period because these animals were swell adapted to different environments and therefore, they could not succumb to the changes in climate. The appearance of the Clovis hunters in North America 11,000 geezerhood ago corresponds to the disappearance of some of the extinct species such as woolly rhinos. The fluted points have been discovered in relation with the bones of the extinct species of these animals such as the bison, horse, mammoth, and camel. These discoveries suggest that the Paleo-Indian and Clovis hunters with quick and effortless access to animals bestial of the dangerous predators such as lions and bears rapidly eradicated the entire species of large animals they faced (Price and Feinan 152). Martins argues that the Clovis group of hunters hunt these Animals, which led to their extinction. Archaeological evidence from these sites and other North American plains contained the remains of mammoth, which made Martin assert that the Clovis hunters hunt these animals. This reasonable observation was then translated into generalization that the Clovis people were big game hunters even there was no (and still there is no) evidence for such specialization. Due to this rationale, some North America archaeologists have attributed the North American Pleistocene extinction in part to human causes. In order to justify his arguments, Martin employ Island extinction to prove that human colonization led to the disappeara