The Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinction and Upper Paleolithic cultural changes: A hypothesis for bioenergetic-driven human adaptations

Abstract

The Late Quaternary Megafaunal Extinction (LQME) represents one of the most significant ecological transformations of the Pleistocene, occurring between 50 and 12 thousand years ago and coinciding temporally with remarkable cultural innovations during the Upper Paleolithic period. Many researchers have identified the human contribution to the LQME, but no attention was directed at the potential influence of the LQME on humans. We propose a hypothesis linking these phenomena through bioenergetic constraints, specifically the human requirement for dietary fat due to protein metabolism limitations. The LQME's systematic reduction in megafauna (over 100 lbs) availability, animals that provided optimal fat content and energetic returns, may have created selective pressures favoring cultural and behavioral innovations. We suggest that Upper Paleolithic developments including complex projectile technology, dog domestication, geographic expansion, accelerated cultural change, Neanderthal extinction, increased symbolic and ritualistic expression and agricultural origins represent adaptive responses to declining prey size driven by the need to maintain adequate energetic returns and fat intake. This hypothesis builds on the well-established principle that predator-prey relationships drive evolutionary adaptations, applying it to human cultural evolution during a period of systematic change in prey composition due to size decline. While requiring extensive testing, this framework offers a potentially unifying explanation for investigating the relationship between environmental change and human cultural evolution. We emphasize the critical need for fine-scale temporal analyses correlating regional prey decline with specific cultural innovations, comprehensive review of alternative explanatory models, and rigorous testing of proposed causal mechanisms before this hypothesis can be validated.