A debate is raging at the annual Megafauna Conference as to whether the demise of such giant beasts as wooly mammoths, mastodons, and sabretooths were caused by natural climate change or overhunting. Image © http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/tag/mammoth/
British environmentalist and writer George Monbiot believes there is a direct correlation between the arrival of human beings to certain parts of the globe and the subsequent demise of the megafauna in those places. However, other scientists, including the noted archaeologists Matthew Boulanger and Lee Lyman at the University of Missouri, Columbia, believe that humans had little to do with the end of the megafauna and that these animals became extinct due to significant temperature changes at the end of the last ice age.
You can read more on the debate at MailOnline.