Huge comet impacts wiped out North America’s large mammals 13,000 years ago
May 9th, 2008 by RedPepper
A controversial theory first presented in May 2007 suggests huge comet impacts wiped out North America’s large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago.
The hypothesis proposes that a comet blasts caused the mass extinction known as the Younger Dryas event and triggered a period of climatic cooling.
The theory has been debated widely since it was introduced, but it drew new analysis in March at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada.
Stuart Fiedel from the Louis Berger Group, a private archaeological firm in Richmond, Virginia, argued that the theory fails to address some major questions like how comet blasts could have wiped out woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats in North America, while leaving humans unscathed.
Source: National Geographic, Image: Bradshaw Foundation