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Anthropology/extinction
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Question
how many masss extictions have been completed:
5
1
6
too many too count
10
Answer depends on whether you count the one going on right now. Most paleontologists recognize five major ones, End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, Late Permian, Late Triassic, and Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT- the "dinosaur killer"). Extinction rates and habitat destruction appear to be increasing over the last 10,000 years leading some scholars to propose the present day as a "sixth extinction".
Best reference on this subject
David Raup 1991 Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck. NY: WW Norton.
Cheers,
John Shea
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John Shea
Expertise
Questions about Old World prehistoric archaeology (especially Stone Age) of Europe, Africa, and Western Asia, prehistoric human and hominid behavior, primitive technology, origin of modern humans, extinction of the Neandertals.
Experience
>20 years as a professional anthropologist based at a research university.
Publications
Journal of Field Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science, Lithic Technology, Evolutionary Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Mitekufat HaEven (Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society), Paléorient, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, American Anthropologist, Geoarchaeology.
Education/Credentials
Ph.D (Anthropology) Harvard University, 1991.
BA (Archaeology) Boston University, 1982.
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