The answer to this can be found in Chapter 1, pages 46 and
47 in the paperback edition of the book. There, Diamond provides us with a long list of
large animals which existed in North America prior to 11,000 BC, which is around the
time that human beings are believed to have started to inhabit the
Americas.
Diamond mentions that the American West would
have looked much like the Serengeti Plains in Africa do today. He says that there were
elephants and horses, lions and cheetahs, camels and giant ground sloths. He also
mentions Harrington's mountain goats. These are all of the animals that he lists as
having existed in North America prior to the extinctions that (he believes) were caused
by human actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment