When humans interacted with megafauna

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. We still have herds of buffalo in protected areas but many of the other megafauna that once roamed North America with them have disappeared. Early human inhabitants of our continent did interact with mammoths, mastodons, saber tooth tigers, and even horses that are no longer here. The theories include overkill by the humans that arrived in North America during these extinctions and changes in climate from dry and cold to warm and humid. There are occasional bone remnants of some now extinct animals at what are called "kill sites," so humans did hunt and eat them to some extent. But those same sites have many more bones from still living animals like buffalo. Clovis points, sharpened and fluted rocks attached to wooden shafts or poles, did make ancient humans effective hunters.