Finally, there existed control groups to test Martin’s theories. On islands and landmasses that remained undiscovered by humans for thousands of years, megafauna survived the climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene, as they had many times before, only to be destroyed when humans eventually arrived on their shores. The last ground sloths might have vanished from mainland North America 10,000 years ago, but in 2005 Martin’s former student, University of Florida paleontologist David Steadman, found fossils of a species that lingered on in Hispaniola and Cuba for an additional 5,000 years.
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