American Holocaust

[blackspade]

85. Agree with all points except this one:

" A lot of native americans were some of the worst people ever. Torture fetishists, arch-racists, etc.. And the worst environmental stewards EVER! They wiped out two continents worth of large mammals in the blink of a geologic eye."

The last point is not backed up by the archaeological record. True, there are a few mass kill sites in the southern plains, but they are rather uncommon. Non-human environmental changes at the end of the pliestocene had the most impact on megafaunal die-off world-wide. The fact that human populations are present in the Americas for 7,000-10,000 years prior to the die-off underscores this point. There has been some interesting work recently (in the last 5 years) speculating that a small comet or asteroid may have hit the ice sheet in eastern Canada pushing not only megafauna into extinction, but most of the Clovis groups as well.

http://cometstorm.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/a-different-kind-of-climate-catastrophe-2/

http://anthropology.net/2009/12/16/more-clovis-comet-debate-and-a-response-from-dr-richard-firestone-2/

And an interesting blog:

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/comet-storm-a-hypothesis-explaining-megafauna-extinction-and-the-younger-dryas/