Escritura integrada TOEFL

📖 Texto de lectura

The extinction of the woolly mammoth, a species that roamed the Earth during the Pleistocene, has long been attributed to human overhunting. However, recent evidence suggests that climate change was the primary driver of their demise. First, the warming climate at the end of the last Ice Age drastically reduced the mammoth’s habitat, as the grasslands they depended on were replaced by forests and tundra. This habitat loss would have fragmented populations, making it difficult for them to find sufficient food and mates. Second, climate change likely increased the frequency of extreme weather events, such as severe winters with heavy snow and ice, which could have prevented mammoths from accessing vegetation, leading to starvation. Finally, the timing of mammoth extinctions aligns more closely with major climatic shifts than with human arrival in many regions, suggesting that environmental factors were more influential than hunting pressure.

🎧 Conferencia de audio

The lecture challenges the view that climate change solely caused the woolly mammoth’s extinction. While climate change did alter habitats, it was not the decisive factor. First, mammoths had survived previous interglacial periods with similar warming trends, so they were adaptable to habitat changes. Instead, human hunting was a novel threat that they could not cope with. For example, archaeological sites show that early humans used sophisticated weapons and hunting strategies to target mammoths, and the disappearance of mammoths often coincides with human expansion into new areas. Second, the claim about extreme weather is speculative; there is no direct evidence that such events became more lethal. In contrast, human hunting would have had a more immediate and severe impact on small, isolated populations. Finally, the timing argument is flawed because humans did not arrive in all mammoth habitats at the same time. In some regions, such as Wrangel Island, mammoths survived long after humans had arrived, and their eventual extinction there was likely due to inbreeding from a tiny population, not climate. Thus, the lecture contends that overhunting by humans, not climate, was the primary cause.