Chapter 18: Blitzkrieg and Thanksgiving in the New World
Three books provide good starting points and many references to the large, contentious literature on human settlement and the extinction of large animals in the New World. They are the book by Paul Martin and Richard Klein cited under Chapter Seventeen; Brian Pagan, The Great Journey (Thames and Hudson, New York, 1987); and Ronald C. Carlisle (editor), Americans Before Columbus: Ice-Age Origins (Ethnology Monographs No. 12, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, 1988).
The blitzkrieg hypothesis was outlined by Paul Martin in his article 'The Discovery of America', Science 179; pp. 969-74 (1973), and modelled mathematically by J.E. Mosimann and Martin in 'Simulating overkill by Paleoindians', American Scientist 63, pp. 304—13 (1975).
The series of articles that C. Vance Haynes, Jnr has published on Clovis culture and its origins include a chapter on pp. 345—53 of the book by Martin and Klein, cited under Chapter Seventeen, and the following selected articles: 'Fluted projectile points: their age and dispersion', Science 145, pp. 1408-13 (1961); The Clovis culture', Canadian Journal of Anthropology 1, pp. 115-21 1980); and 'Clovis origin update', The Kiva 52, pp. 83–93 (1987). For the simultaneous extinction of the Shasta ground sloth and Harrington's mountain goat, see J.I. Mead etal, 'Extinction of Harring-ton's mountain goat', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 83, pp. 836-39 (1986). Critiques of pre-Clovis claims are provided by Roger Owen in a chapter 'The Americas: the case against an Ice-Age human population', pp. 517-63 in The Origins of Modern Humans, edited by Fred H. Smith and Frank Spencer (Liss, New York, 1984); by Dena Dincauze, 'An archaeo- logical evaluation of the case for pre-Clovis occupations', in Advances in World Archaeology 3, pp. 275–323 (1984); and by Thomas Lynch, 'Glacial-age man in South America? A critical review', in American Antiquity 55, pp. 12–36 (1990). Arguments in support of a pre-Clovis date for human occupation levels at Meadowcroft Rockshelter are summarized by James Adovasio in 'Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 1973–1977: a synopsis', pp. 97-131 in J.E. Ericson et al, Peopling of the New World (Los Altos, California, 1982), and in 'Who are those guys?: some biased thoughts on the initial peopling of the New World', pp. 45–61 in Americans Before Columbus: Ice-Age Origins, edited by Ronald C. Carlisle, cited above. The first of several projected volumes with a detailed description of the Monte Verde site is by T.D. Dillehay, Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile', Vol. I: Palaeoenvironment and Site Contexts (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1989).
Readers interested in keeping up on the story of the first Americans and the last mammoths will enjoy subscribing to a quarterly newspaper, Mammoth Trumpet, obtainable from the Center for the Study of the First Americans, 495 College Avenue, Orono, Maine 04473. Chapter 19: The Second Cloud
Species-by-species accounts of extinct and endangered species are contained in the Red Data Books published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (abbreviated IUCN).
There are separate books for various groups of plants and animals, and separate books are also now appearing for different continents. Corresponding books for birds have been prepared by the International Council for Bird Preservation (abbreviated ICBP): Warren B. King, editor, Endangered Birds of the World: The ICBP Red Data Book (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1981); and N.J. Collar and P. Andrew, Birds to Watch: The ICBP World Checklist of Threatened Birds (ICBP, Cambridge, 1988).
A summary and analysis of modern and Ice-Age extinction waves and their mechanisms are provided by my article 'Historic extinctions: a Rosetta Stone for understanding prehistoric extinctions', pp. 824-62 in Quaternary Extinctions by Martin and Klein, cited under Chapter Seventeen. The problem of overlooked species extinctions is discussed in my article 'Extant unless proven extinct? Or extinct unless proven extant? in Conservation Biology 1, pp. 77–79 (1987). Terry Erwin estimates the total number of living species in a paper 'Tropical forests: their richness in Coleoptera and other arthropod species', The Cole-opterists' Bulletin 36, pp. 74–75 (1982). Further readings on Pleistocene and Early Recent cases of extinction are given under Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen. In addition, Storrs Olson reviews the extinction of island birds in an article 'Extinction on islands: man as a catastrophe', pp. 50–53 of Conservation for the Twenty-first Century, edited by David Western and Mary Pearl (Oxford University Press, New York, 1989). lan Atkinson's article on pp. 54–75 of the same book, 'Introduced animals and extinctions', summarizes the havoc wrought by rats and other pests. Epilogue Nothing Learned, and Everything Forgotten?
Many excellent books discuss the present and future of the extinction crisis and the other crises now facing humanity, their causes, and what to do about them. Among them are the following: John J. Berger, Restoring the Earth: How Americans are Working to Renew our Damaged Environment (Knopf, New York, 1985); editor, Environmental Restoration: Science and Strategies for Restoring the Earth (Island Press, Washington DC, 1990). John Cairns, Jnr, Rehabilitating Damaged Ecosystems (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 1988); with K.L. Dickson and E.E. Herricks, Recovery and Restoration of Damaged Ecosystems (University Press of Virginia, Charlottes ville, 1977).
Anne and Paul Ehrlich, Extinction (Random House, New York, 1981); Earth (Franklin Watts, New York, 1987); The Population Explosion (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990); Healing Earth (Addison Wesley, New York, 1991). Paul Ehrlich et al, The Cold and the Dark (Norton, New York, 1984). D. Furguson and N. Furguson, Sacred Cows at the Public Trough (Maverick Publications, Bend, Oregon, 1983).
Suzanne Head and Robert Heinzman, editors, Lessons of the Rainforest (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Jeffrey A. McNeely, Economics and Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1988); Jeffrey A. McNeely et al, Conserving the World's Biological Diversity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, 1990). Norman Myers, Conversion of Tropical Moist Forests (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 1980); Gaia: an Atlas of Planet Management (Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1984); The Primary Source (Norton, New York, 1985).
Michael Oppenheimer and Robert Boyle, Dead Heat: the Race against the Greenhouse Effect (Basic Books, New York, 1990).
Walter V. Reid and Kenton R. Miller, Keeping Options Alive: the Scientific Basis for Conserving Biodiversity (World Resources Institute, Washington DC, 1989).
Sharon L. Roan, Ozone Crisis: the Fifteen-Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Robin Russell Jones and Tom Wigley, editors, Ozone Depletion: Health and Environmental Consequences (Wiley, New York, 1989).
Steven H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? second edition (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1990).
Michael E. Soule, editor, Conservation Biology: the Science of Scarcity and Diversity (Sinauer, Sunderland, Massachusetts, 1986).
John Terborgh, Where Have All the Birds Gone? (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990). E.O. Wilson, Biophilia (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984); editor, Biodiversity (National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1988).
Finally, readers interested enough to want to pursue further readings may also want suggestions about what to do to reduce the risk that our children's generation will become extinct. As I explain in the text, the average citizen can do a good deal, both by being active politically and by giving even modest amounts of money to conservation organizations. Here are the names and addresses of a few of the best-known and largest such
