He very much sides with the “black hole” theory of extinction – dozens of species were wiped out to fill the hole in the face of the hunters. They arrived in a land dominated by giant creatures that had not learnt to fear the hunting ability of humans.įlannery describes the role that these hunters played in the extinction of the mega-fauna – the mammoths in particular. The relative isolation of the American continent didn’t stop plants and animals going back and forth, though that was rare and limited.īut it was only recently that humans arrived there. The book comes into its own when Flannery describes the arrival of humans. But mostly he concentrates on the evolution of the new.
He describes the few living fossils that remain, left over from before. This opened the way for the rise of the mammals.įlannery documents brilliantly the evolution of plant and animal life post impact. The nuclear winter caused by the dust and smoke created wiped out something like 80% of all species, including of course the giant reptiles that had dominated until then. 65 million years ago, what became North America was pretty much ripped apart as a giant object impacted in what is now the Gulf of Mexico.
What Tim Flannery has done in “The Eternal Frontier” is to take one great continent – and look at the history of the place as a whole. However there is also a non-human history too – this is the history of the world that we live in, its flora and fauna, its geology and geography. Capitalism is merely the latest stage of human history. Of particular interest is the way that the most modern human society, capitalism, is inherently anti-nature.Īll societies have a history. The relationship between humans, the societies that they create and the natural world around them is something that fascinates me.
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