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"Some great points there, Louis. . . Ultimately, I doubt it's an either/or scenario. More likely than not, there was a dialectical process whereby changing climate conditions led to fewer animals which could indeed have led to "overhunting" if there was a relatively "sudden" reduction in the supply of food in relation to the local populations that had built themselves up on the previously abundant supply of megafauna. " I found this article quite unsatisfying and too non-scientific to merit credibility. You, Louis, cannot say (well, you can and apparently do) at the outset that you admittedly do not understand the "technical" arguments about the megafaunal extinctions and then (!) go on to denounce an argument as if you have any scientific basis even to speak and based on essentially two opinion pieces by people arguing that scientific evidence has too many current charlatans making racist arguments against "native" peoples (yes, there are quotes around the term when you consider that being "native" to a land that even with the most liberal of interpretations amounts to a North American history of about 50,000 years and more than likely only amounts to a "homestead" of 15,000 to 13, 000 years). Just because we have racist thinkers in archeology and, even, paleontology (imagine that!) doesn't mean that the scientific evidence about the human role in megafaunal extinctions is not accurate. Saying that is not a racist statement if the ONLY humans to have played such a role happened to be "indigenous" peoples. Indeed, the evidence of indigenous roles on this continent are just as (humanly) flawed in their early times as among any other indigenous peoples throughout the world, which on the face of it, we are not just relative newcomers to the terrestrial scene, we are immigrants and ugly immigrants in our overall footprint on this earth, you know, just like every other species that has come and gone throughout the eons. Saying all of that is just a recognition that we are a species, like every other species, that exists under the aegis of evolutionary theory and natural selection. The span of our existence is barely mentionable on a geological scale were it not for the fact that our presence now has the dubious distinction of being the first actually to threaten the entire earth's existence, not because we have a right to exist but because we--that is, the systems of class, economy, and social formation--have resulted in the hubris that we have a greater right to exist than any other species. There is much paleontological evidence that about climate change having great effects on the earth's history, but our rather abusive role can be seen in context of the last 65 million years since the asteroid impact at what is now the Gulf of Mexico; an event that precipitated a rather unique "exceptionalism" climatically within what we now call "North America". Since the Chixilub asteroid "disaster" there have been millions of species and hundreds of thousands of megafauna that have come, gone, grown and "arrived". There were, in fact, 17 (!) global ice ages since then a nd in all instances the demise of megafaunal mammals can only be attributed to the last, our current one (yes, despite the human intrusion that now threatens to eradicate it artificially, we have been essentially in a cooling period). Before now, none of the ice ages that came and went had the effect of completely eradicating megafaunal species. Indeed, this might be a combiination of climatic shifts along with us, but the point of it is that WE (i.e., the previous "we" who came here likely between 20 and 10, 000 years ago, and the current "we") had MUCH to do with it. That we have some scientists who reduce their scientific credentials in service to capitalism and its temptations does not obviate this evidence. As I commented on your blog, Louis, either produce some actual evidence with veritable scientific scholarship to refute the impact of early humans on fauna, flora, and consequent climatic change or incorporate the current evidence in a way that any Marxist revolutionary would do; integrating it scientifically into our theories for emancipating the world from the scourge of economic, social, and political devastation that is our current legacy in the maintenance of profit over human--and biological speciation's--need. Simply concluding that theories of human roles in precipating environmental crises--now and "then"--are invalid because some charlatans bastardize the science is a disservice to scientific socialism. What, the propensity for human's ability to claim their "exceptionalism" just escaped the early humans and skipped over "only" to Europeans? I am myself a product of European hubris to establish their primacy over "indigenous" peoples. Yet, those purported indigenous peoples--the other half of my own ancestry--were a vicious lot, if only nascently evolving into an oppressive class society. You really believe that the now native immigrants to this land just came "all enlightened" about "preserving their environment" with great knowledge and benevolent intentions? You really believe that humans in our early history were somehow immune to our human belief in our primacy in all matters? The trouble with "primitive communalism" is not that it was communal, but that it was primitive! It was ill-formed and based on many very human characteristics evolved under the laws of survival. It is only now, and not very well, that we can even have a different "mindset" to think more globally about o ur role. It's been a long time in coming and we have yet to arrive at an understanding of our role that will ultimately play a better role than we previously have. I, like you, see such a role coming in the form a new(er) form of "communalism", a communalism that we as yet do not wholly see despite our absolute belief in its promise and our dedicaton to its fruition. We cannot ever hope to get there without at least attempting to tell the truth. For an excellent review of the paleontological history of "North America", I recommend a book by Tim Flannery "The Eternal Frontier" (2003), from which much of my remarks above on the ice ages and megafaunal extinctions and role of early humans were based. https://books.google.com/books?id=R9HMO7b74IkC _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
