{"id":49276,"date":"2023-08-22T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T05:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=49276"},"modified":"2023-08-21T08:51:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:51:02","slug":"qotd-megafauna-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/08\/22\/qotd-megafauna-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Megafauna extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Another marker to put down about the extinction of the varied megafauna. A lot of which went extinct just as human beings \u2013 or varied ancestors of \u2013 turned up in the same area. The usual bit being that we eated it.<\/p>\n<p>There is, sadly enough, a common misconception about our ancestors. Nature loving, that Rousseauesque fantasy of just drinking the clear water, munching on the acorns that fall unbidden. That humans don&#8217;t thrive on acorns matters not a whit to those who share this fantasy of an Elysian past. The truth being that humans \u2013 and proto- \u2013 were the most vicious beasts out there. That&#8217;s why we survived to thrive. It&#8217;s not just modern day humans who would scale down a cliff to throttle babbie seabirds for the pot after all.<\/p>\n<p>So too with the bargain bucket meal on legs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2019\/jun\/27\/half-tonne-birds-roamed-europe-humans\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">just found<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Half-tonne birds may have roamed Europe at same time as humans<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They roamed, we eated, they roamed no more. As with the arrival of the Maori in New Zealand and the exit of moas. The American horse disappearing about the same time Amerinds made it past the ice barriers into British Columbia and points south. Dodos and sailing ships and on and on around the globe. The major factor in megafauna going extinct being humans turning up to eat them.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Worstall, <a href=\"https:\/\/continentaltelegraph.com\/science\/crimea-fried-ostrich-and-then-we-eated-it\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Crimea Fried Ostrich &#8211; And Then We Eated It&#8221;, <em>Continental Telegraph<\/em><\/a>, 2019-06-27.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another marker to put down about the extinction of the varied megafauna. A lot of which went extinct just as human beings \u2013 or varied ancestors of \u2013 turned up in the same area. The usual bit being that we eated it. There is, sadly enough, a common misconception about our ancestors. Nature loving, that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[465,65,62,7,683,41],"tags":[130,422,438,301],"class_list":["post-49276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas","category-environment","category-europe","category-history","category-pacific","category-quotations","tag-evolution","tag-extinction","tag-firstnations","tag-newzealand"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cOM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84345,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49276\/revisions\/84345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}