On the Pleistocene extinctions of Alaskan mammoths and horses - PubMed (original) (raw)

On the Pleistocene extinctions of Alaskan mammoths and horses

Andrew R Solow et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006.

Abstract

The fossil record has been used to shed light on the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions in North America and elsewhere. It is therefore important to account for variability due to the incompleteness of the fossil record and error in dating fossil remains. Here, a joint confidence region for the extinction times of horses and mammoths in Alaska is constructed. The results suggest that a prior claim that the extinction of horses preceded the arrival of humans cannot be made with confidence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.

Figures

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Joint 0.95 confidence region for extinction times β1 of mammoths and β2 of horses.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Observed ordered radiocarbon ages (solid lines) plotted against estimated expected ordered radiocarbon ages based on the fitted models for mammoths (a) and horses (b). Also shown are estimated lower and upper 0.025 quantiles of observed ordered ages (dotted lines) and the 45° line (dashed lines).

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