Unraveling an ancient European extinction mystery: Disappearance of dwarf megafauna on paleolithic Cyprus

Small populations of Stone Age people drove dwarf hippos and elephants to extinction on Cyprus

Imagine growing up beside the eastern Mediterranean Sea 14,000 years ago. You’re an accomplished sailor of the small watercraft you and your fellow villagers make, and you live off both the sea and the land. But times have been difficult — there just isn’t the same amount of game or fish around as when you were a child. Maybe it’s time to look elsewhere for food. Now imagine going farther than ever before in your little boat, accompanied maybe…

Dwarf hippos and elephants in Cyprus ‘driven to extinction by just 3,000 people’

Both animals disappeared within a century after hunter-gatherers arrived, scientists say.

Unraveling an ancient European extinction mystery: Disappearance of dwarf megafauna on paleolithic Cyprus

Scientists have unraveled a mystery about the disappearance of dwarf hippos and elephants that once roamed the picturesque landscape on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus before paleolithic humans arrived.

Unravelling an ancient European extinction mystery: disappearance of d

Scientists have unravelled a mystery about the disappearance of dwarf hippos and elephants that once roamed the picturesque landscape on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus before palaeolithic humans arrived. Cyprus only had two species of megafauna present during the Late Pleistocene — the 500-kg dwarf elephant (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes), and the 130-kg dwarf hippo (Phanourios minor), but both species disappeared soon after humans arrived around …