Despite decades of research, the roles of climate and humans in driving the dramatic extinctions of large-bodied mammals during the Late Quaternary remain contentious. We use ancient DNA, species distribution models and the human fossil record to elucidate how climate and humans shaped the demographic history of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison and musk ox. We show that climate has been a major driver of population change over the past 50,000 years. However, each species responds differently to the effects of climatic shifts, habitat redistribution and human encroachment. Although climate change alone can explain the extinction of some species, such as Eurasian musk ox and woolly rhinoceros, a combination of climatic and anthropogenic effects appears to be responsible for the extinction of others, including Eurasian steppe bison and wild horse. We find no genetic signature or any distinctive range dynamics distinguishing extinct from surviving species, underscoring the challenges associated with predicting future responses of extant mammals to climate and human-mediated habitat change.

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Zooarchaeologists regularly assume a positive relationship between body size and energetic return rates among animal taxa. Some researchers question the validity of this assumption, suggesting that small animals collected in mass can provide high returns and pose interpretive problems for methods relying on a clear correlation. A review of empirical data shows that while large fish and invertebrates can provide high returns, those for most small animals remain very low. Differences appear to result from disparities in the relative energetic value of various taxa, costs associated with mass collection, and the efficiency with which resources are handled once acquired. Mass collection is unlikely to pose an interpretive problem under most circumstances, and the low returns for mass collecting many small animals have interesting implications for interpreting changes in their relative frequencies.

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