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Mastodon fossil throws up questions over 'rapid' extinction

Nature (2011)Cite this article

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A bone tool embedded in a mastodon rib suggests humans were hunting big game earlier than thought.

About 13,800 years ago, a mastodon in North America met a somewhat ironic end. It died at the hands of humans wielding a bone projectile made from the skeleton of another mastodon. A study of the remains of this unfortunate trunk-bearing beast adds weight to the theory that the downfall of the megafauna may have been more gradual than previously proposed.

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References

  1. Waters, M. R. et al. Science 334, 351-353 (2011).

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  2. Gill, J. L., Williams, J. W., Jackson, S. T., Lininger, K. B. & Robinson, G. S. Science 326, 1100-1103 (2009).

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  1. Brian Switek
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Michael Waters

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Switek, B. Mastodon fossil throws up questions over 'rapid' extinction. Nature (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.606

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2011.606

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