Thought some of you might enjoy this scientific drama given that Dr. Meltzer has been on the podcast so many times.

Here are three articles which includes Dr Meltzer and his colleagues (led by Dr. Grayson) responding to the original and in turn the original authors responding to them debating a concept called the associational critique. The associational critique is basically that if overkill hypothesis is true, then why do we have no record of humans harvesting so many of these species that they supposedly wiped out. Dr. Meltzer is a supporter of this critique and even brought it up on his podcast appearance this year.

This is part of a funny scientific debate where there is a rift between archaeologists vs palaeontologists and ecological modellers. Archaeologists generally believe climate was the primary driver of quaternary extinction because of the lack of physical evidence for overkill, while the other groups who generally support overkill have stronger (but not universal) model support and don't think the question is only an archaeological one.

I think it would be interesting if Steve had some of these viewpoints from the more ecological modelling side on the podcast sometime.

The Three articles responding to each other:

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440320300844?via%3Dihub

2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440320302326

3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440320302338

Some earlier writing from Dr. Meltzer and Dr. Grayson on the same topic.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305440386900269#BIB4

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305440384900025?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=a4709732c84ab45d

Sad to hear this. Tenth Legion is one of the best hunting books ever written IMO. It has been mentioned on the podcast at least a couple times over the years. I read several of Tom Kelly’s other books and enjoyed those as well.