| Description |
xviii, 241 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm |
| Summary |
In order to understand what happened in the Ice Age, Ward takes us on a tour of mass extinctions through earth's history. He presents a compelling account of the great comet crash that killed off the dinosaurs and describes other extinctions that were even worse. In so doing he introduces us to a profound paradigm shift now taking place in paleontology: rather than arising from the gradual workings of everyday forces, all mass extinctions are due to unique, catastrophic events. They throw a wild card into the game of evolution and start the contest anew |
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Why are the great mammals that once walked the earth now largely extinct outside of Africa? Of the two suspected culprits, climate change and human hunting, Ward builds a compelling case for human hunting. Humans arrived in Australia about 40,000 years ago, and the marsupial lions and giant kangaroos vanished soon after; they came to New Zealand 2,000 years ago, and the giant moa was quickly gone; and the American extinction coincides with the spread of the first human population there |
| Analysis |
Extinction (Biology) |
|
Mastodons |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-229) and index |
| Subject |
Extinction (Biology)
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Mammoths.
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Mastodons.
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Mastodons.
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| LC no. |
96048690 |
| ISBN |
0387949151 (hardcover : acid-free paper) |
|
0387985727 (paperback) |
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