Declining Prey Size in the Southern African Pleistocene: Evaluating the Human Impact
Journal: Preprints.org
Year: 2024

Megafauna extinctions are known from the Late Quaternary. This study analyzes trends in prey size from 184 contexts across 49 archaeological sites in southern Africa to assess changes in prey size during the Pleistocene, including the pre-Late Quaternary transition between the Early Stone Age (ESA) and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Very large prey (&amp;gt;950kg) accounted for over 34% of the biomass in the ESA, declining to 22% in MSA and 11% in LSA, with a compensatory increase in the contributi