protracted Holocene extinction of California's flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) and its implications for the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis

Bones of the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) from 14 archaeological sites along the California coast indicate that humans hunted the species for at least 8,000 years before it was driven to extinction. Direct ¹⁴C dates on Chendytes bones show that the duck was exploited on the southern Californ...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 105; no. 11; pp. 4105 - 4108
Main Authors:	Jones, T.L, Porcasi, J.F, Erlandson, J.M, Dallas, H. Jr, Wake, T.A, Schwaderer, R
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States National Academy of Sciences 18-03-2008 National Acad Sciences
Series:	From the Cover
Subjects:	Animals Archaeological sites Archaeology Birds Bone and Bones - chemistry Bone and Bones - metabolism Bones Calendars California Chendytes lawi Ducks Ducks - physiology Extinct species Extinction Extinction, Biological Flightless birds History, Ancient Human Activities Humans Hypotheses Models, Biological Ornithology Paleontology Radiocarbon Social Sciences Species extinction Watercraft California INE, USA, California
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Bones of the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) from 14 archaeological sites along the California coast indicate that humans hunted the species for at least 8,000 years before it was driven to extinction. Direct ¹⁴C dates on Chendytes bones show that the duck was exploited on the southern California islands as early as [almost equal to]11,150-10,280 calendar years B.P., and on the mainland by at least 8,500 calendar years B.P. The youngest direct date of 2,720-2,350 calendar years B.P., combined with the absence of Chendytes bones from hundreds of late Holocene sites, suggests that the species was extinct by [almost equal to]2,400 years ago. Although the extinction of Chendytes clearly resulted from human overhunting, its demise raises questions about the Pleistocene overkill model, which suggests that megafauna were driven to extinction in a blitzkrieg fashion by Native Americans [almost equal to]13,000 years ago. That the extermination of Chendytes was so protracted and archaeologically visible suggests that, if the terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were primarily the result of human exploitation, there should also be a long and readily detectable archaeological record of their demise. The brief window now attributed to the Clovis culture ([almost equal to]13,300-12,900 B.P.) seems inconsistent with an overhunting event.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Edited by Dolores R. Piperno, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and Balboa, Panama, and approved December 26, 2007 Author contributions: T.L.J. and J.F.P. designed research; T.L.J., J.F.P., J.M.E., H.D., T.A.W., and R.S. performed research; T.L.J. analyzed data; and T.L.J., J.F.P., and J.M.E. wrote the paper.
ISSN:	0027-8424 1091-6490
DOI:	10.1073/pnas.0711140105