The book by AJ Stuart is an updated summary on one of the most debated issues in Quaternary studies—the mass extinction of large-size mammals (with a weight of ca. 45 kg and more), called megafauna, in the Late Pleistocene, since ca. 130,000 years ago. It is written in an academic style compared to other recent volumes (e.g., MacPhee Reference MacPhee2019), with representative number of figures and tables, and ca. 540 references. The sources include books and articles published mainly up to 2018; only 3 citations are given to papers published in 2019. The book consists of 13 chapters, Acknowledgments, Appendix, Notes, References, and an Index.

The fossil remains of unusual (originally called “diluvial,” i.e., belonging to the time of the Biblical flood) animals attracted different kinds of people since the eighteenth century and even before that; the early scholars (until ca. 1850–1890) included professional paleontologists (JF Blumenbach, G Cuvier, C Darwin, AR Wallace, G Fischer von Waldheim, P Gervais, A Bravard, H Burmeister, and R Owen); explorers and amateur naturalists (T Molyneux, JC Rosenmüller, JB Bru, G Croghan, H Eberhard, A Grandedier, JL Martinez, T Mitchell, W Denton, M Torres, and J Rule); and even statesmen and politicians (T Jefferson, B Franklin, E Dashkova, É de Flacourt, and Marques de Loreto). In the latter category, there were such colorful individuals as Edward Hyde (1661–1723), Lord (Viscount) Cornbury (p. 89), a.k.a. the 3rd Earl of Clarendon (succeeded in 1709; see Bonomi Reference Bonomi, Matthew and Harrison2004). He was first cousin to Queen Anne who (with King William III) appointed him a governor of the New York and New Jersey royal colonies in 1701/2.

The introductory chapters 1–4 (pp. 1–25) contain basic information about the book and its main subject. The phenomenon of mammal extinction in the recent geological past was obvious to famous natural scientists like C Darwin and AR Wallace more than 150 years ago. Today, much more is known about the megafaunal composition and timing of its demise, especially with the help of radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating. The ¹⁴C method is the most secure way to establish spatiotemporal patterns of the Late Pleistocene changes in the biogeography of terrestrial vertebrates. The main aim of the book is to understand “… how megafaunal extinctions occurred against the background of the Quaternary/Pleistocene Ice Age, with its profound changes in climate, glaciations, vegetation, fauna, changing sea levels, and the emergence and flooding of land bridges. I also look at the spread of modern humans across the globe and how this has impacted the megafauna, and examine the pattern of global extinctions, both on continents and on islands.” (p. 2). In the last ca. 450 million years, the Earth underwent several mass disappearances of both terrestrial and marine animals (pp. 6–9), but in the Late Pleistocene this process influenced almost exclusively terrestrial species.

The idea of rewilding (i.e., “restoration” of Late Pleistocene ecosystems by the introduction of keystone animal species) sensu Martin (Reference Martin2005), especially in northern Eurasia (Zimov Reference Zimov2005), is controversial. Particularly disputable are claims to clone the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and other extinct species using their frozen tissues that time by time are discovered in permafrost deposits of Siberia and Alaska (p. 4). The essential issue is that every extinct species has its own spatiotemporal pattern of demise, and some of the Late Pleistocene mammals—like musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) and saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica)—have survived the terminal Pleistocene times and continue to exist today. As for cross-checking the ¹⁴C dates in different laboratories, which is an important subject indeed (p. 3), in our practice the Early Holocene ages of giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus) from the Preobrazhenka 6 site in Western Siberia determined at two laboratories—7865 ± 40 BP (GrA-56935) (van der Plicht et al. Reference van der Plicht, Molodin, Kuzmin, Vasiliev, Postnov and Slavinsky2015) and 7890 ± 40 BP (OxA-23412) (Lister and Stuart Reference Lister and Stuart2019)—are almost identical.

The cause(s) of the Late Pleistocene extinction is the subject of heated debate (pp. 19–25). Several models-cum-hypotheses are proposed: the dominant role of environmental changes (climate and vegetation); the global spread of early modern humans (Homo sapiens) and “overkill” (or “Blitzkrieg”) sensu Martin (Reference Martin2005); a mysterious “hyperdisease” (i.e., pandemic); and even more controversial extraterrestrial impact at ca. 12,000 years ago. While the two latter hypotheses cannot be scientifically verified, the discussion of natural changes versus overkill is ongoing. I remember well the lively debates on this issue during the conference The World of Elephants in Rome (2001) where both the author of this book and I were present.

Chapters 5–12 (pp. 26–226) contain information about the process of megafaunal extinction (and in some cases survival) in different parts of the world. Along with summary papers cited in the book, other publications by Kuzmin (Reference Kuzmin2010), Kuzmin and Orlova (Reference Kuzmin and Orlova2004), Kuzmin et al. (Reference Kuzmin, Orlova and Dementiev2008), Orlova et al. (Reference Orlova, Kuzmin and Dementiev2004), and MacDonald et al. (Reference MacDonald, Beilman, Kuzmin, Orlova, Kremenetski, Shapiro, Wayne and Van Valkenburgh2012), should also be mentioned.

Data for northern Eurasia—including Europe, Siberia, and East Asia—are the most numerous, especially in terms of the number of direct megafaunal ¹⁴C dates. In these regions, ca. 40% of large mammals went extinct in the Late Pleistocene, including 8 species of ca. 2000 kg weight and more, and 8 other species of more than ca. 500 kg weight (pp. 26–27). It seems that the treeless cold landscapes of the “mammoth steppe”, common in this vast region around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ca. 23,000–27,000 cal BP, was the most suitable habitat for megafauna, especially its largest representatives, woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis).

The process of extinction in northern Eurasia was not simultaneous, and many megafaunal species have their own patterns of final disappearance (pp. 61–66). The mammoth habitat shrunk significantly since ca. 13,900 cal BP (p. 49; see also Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2010; Dehasque et al. Reference Dehasque, Pečnerová, Muller, Tikhonov, Nikolskiy, Tsigankova, Danilov, Díez-del-Molino, Vartanyan, Dalén and Lister2021; Puzachenko et al. Reference Puzachenko, Markova, Kosintsev, van Kolfschoten, van der Plicht, Kuznetsova, Tikhonov, Ponomarev, Kuitems and Bachura2017), and the population on Wrangel Island in the High Arctic went extinct at ca. 4000 cal BP (p. 50). Woolly rhinoceros was present in northern Eurasia until at least ca. 15,000 cal BP, and the youngest ¹⁴C values (ca. 14,000–14,200 cal BP) are known from Yakutia (pp. 36–40). However, the data by Orlova et al. (Reference Orlova, Vasil’ev, Kuzmin and Kosintsev2008) show that in the Urals it survived until ca. 14,400 cal BP. This issue is still debatable (see Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2013; Lister and Stuart Reference Lister and Stuart2013). The latest data based on analysis of environmental DNA suggest that the last occurrence of woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and steppe bison in northern Siberia could be dated to the Holocene (Wang et al. Reference Wang, Pedersen, Alsos, De Sanctis, Racimo, Prohaska, Coissac, Owens, Merkel, Fernandez-Guerra, Rouillard, Lammers, Alberti, Denoeud, Money, Ruter, McColl, Larsen, Cherezova, Edwards, Fedorov, Haile, Orlando, Vinner, Korneliussen, Beilman, Bjørk, Cao, Dockter, Esdale, Gusarova, Kjeldsen, Mangerud, Rasic, Skadhauge, Svendsen, Tikhonov, Wincker, Xing, Zhang, Froese, Rahbek, Nogues, Holden, Edwards, Durbin, Meltzer, Kjær, Möller and Willerslev2021). The latest finds of giant deer, dated to the Early Holocene (ca. 7660–8760 cal BP), are known at two refugia: in the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia; and in Eastern Europe (van der Plicht et al. Reference van der Plicht, Molodin, Kuzmin, Vasiliev, Postnov and Slavinsky2015; Lister and Stuart Reference Lister and Stuart2019), separated by several thousand kilometers. The steppe bison (Bison priscus) went extinct at ca. 8900–9800 cal BP (p. 60), but Markova et al. (Reference Markova, Puzachenko, van Kolfschoten, Kosintsev, Kuznetsova, Tikhonov, Bachura, Ponomarev, van der Plicht and Kuitems2015) reported a ¹⁴C date of ca. 3300 cal BP for a bison from Vologda Province of European Russia. However, it is not certain if this is a Pleistocene steppe bison (B. priscus) or an extant wisent (B. bonasus). The first modern humans appeared in northern Eurasia at ca. 45,100 cal BP in the Balkans (at the Bacho Kiro site), and at ca. 44,300 cal BP in Western Siberia (Ust’-Ishim locality) (Fu et al. Reference Fu, Li, Moorjani, Jay, Slepchenko, Bondarev, Johnson, Petri, Prüfer, de Filippo, Meyer, Zwyns, Salazar-Garcia, Kuzmin, Keates, Kosintsev, Razhev, Richards, Peristov, Lachmann, Douka, Higham, Slatkin, Hublin, Reich, Kelso, Viola and Pääbo2014; Hublin et al. Reference Hublin, Sirakov, Aldeias, Bailey, Bard, Delvigne, Endarova, Fagault, Fewlass, Hajdinjak, Kromer, Krumov, Marreiros, Martisius, Paskulin, Sinet-Mathiot, Meyer, Pääbo, Popov, Rezek, Sirakova, Skinner, Smith, Spasov, Talamo, Tuna, Wacker, Welker, Wilcke, Zahariev, McPherron and Tsanova2020). Overall, for northern Eurasia environmental change as a major cause for Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction is the most plausible scenario (p. 61). Humans probably played a minor role in this process, although in some cases in the final stage of disappearance they may have been a contributory factor along with the natural agents.

Important ¹⁴C data were recently obtained for several species in northern Eurasia that previously were considered as extinct at the Last Interglacial, ca. 130,000–100,000 years ago, and even before that. Giant rhinoceros (Elasmotherium sibiricum) was dated to ca. 37,500 cal BP (pp. 40–43); the Khozarian steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii chosaricus) to ca. 45,300 cal BP (Shpansky and Kuzmin Reference Shpansky and Kuzmin2021); and a Merck’s rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis) to ca. 43,500 cal BP (Kirillova et al. Reference Kirillova, Vershinina, Zazovskaya, Zanina, Cutler, Kosintsev, Lapteva, Chernova and Shapiro2021). Along with previously generated very young ¹⁴C dates for scimitar cat (Homotherium latidens), ca. 30,900–35,200 cal BP (p. 60), and forest elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), ca. 37,000–40,000 cal BP (pp. 58–59), these new ages raise the question of their reliability, because these species have large gaps in appearance: they are unknown in fossil records between ca. 100,000–300,000 years ago and ca. 31,000–45,000 cal BP. It seems that additional dating by independent methods, like U–Th and/or ESR, is necessary to confirm/reject these very late ¹⁴C values (p. 60).

In North America, the patterns of extinction were quite different from northern Eurasia; the losses of megafauna are much larger, ca. 75%. The extent of ¹⁴C dating is not satisfactory, except for the Alaska/Yukon region north of the former continental ice sheets. The process of disappearance took place in a relatively short time compared to northern Eurasia; many species have their last occurrences at ca. 11,600–13,700 cal BP (pp. 108–110). Perhaps the largest megafaunal species that ever existed, Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) with up to 4 m shoulder height and weight of ca. 10,000 kg (p. 95), went extinct at ca. 12,500 cal BP. The chronology of woolly mammoth in Alaska has a gap between ca. 13,300 cal BP and ca. 5500 cal BP (p. 111, Table 6.1), and it is unclear—where could it have survived at this time? Migration from neighboring Arctic regions of northern Eurasia is very unlikely. The issue of overkill in North America is still hotly debated (see Meltzer Reference Meltzer2020), and it is related to the peopling of the Americas which is an even “hotter” subject when occasional clashes of personalities and the desire for funding mask the real picture (see recent review: Fiedel Reference Fiedel2022).

In South America, the overall losses of megafauna are also high, ca. 85%. The amount of ¹⁴C dates is sufficient to reconstruct the main patterns of extinction (p. 138). Several species—giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum), “narrow-headed” ground sloth (Scelidotherium leptocephalum), another ground sloth (Catonyx cuvieri), club-tailed glyptodont (Doedicurus clavicaudatus), litoptern (Macrauchenia patachonica), large armadillo (Eutatus seguini), horse (Hippidion saldiasi), and sabertooth (Smilodon populator)—disappeared in the Early Holocene, ca. 7800–11,300 cal BP. The arrival of humans to South America is accepted by most of scholars as ca. 13,000–14,000 cal BP (p. 136). Therefore, the megafaunal extinction on this continent is related mainly to environmental change, and the chance for overkill is very slim (p. 138).

In Sahul (modern Australia and New Guinea), the loss of megafauna is ca. 90%. The biggest problem here is the dating of animal fossils because the ages for many of them are beyond the limit of ¹⁴C dating, i.e., greater than ca. 50,000 cal BP. Some dates were recently revised; the chronology for the largest extinct marsupial (the size of woolly rhinoceros), Diprotodon optatum (pp. 147–153), is determined as not younger than ca. 60,000 years based on direct U–Th dating of teeth (Price et al. Reference Price, Fitzsimmons, Nguyen, Zhao, Feng, Sobbe, Godthelp, Archer and Hand2021). Other representatives of megafauna went extinct at ca. 43,800 cal BP (p. 173) or even later. The timing for the arrival of modern humans to Australia is still debatable (see Williams et al. Reference Williams, Spooner, McDonnell and O’Connell2021); the value of ca. 65,000 years ago is now challenged, and ca. 50,000–55,000 years ago is perhaps the most reliable age estimate (p. 147). In this case, it is clear that humans and megafauna coexisted for several millennia, and overkill in Sahul can be ruled out.

In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the megafaunal losses are modest, up to ca. 15–20%. In the Indo-Malay ecoregion (pp. 223–225), only 6 out of 28 species—stegodon (Stegodon orientalis), large tapir (Megatapirus augustus), short-horned water buffalo (Bubalus mephistopheles), hyena (Crocuta ultima), giant panda (Ailuropoda baconi), and an Asian straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon namadicus)—disappeared in the Late Pleistocene.

The extinction of mammals and birds on Madagascar is rarely mentioned in major compendia (e.g., Martin and Klein Reference Martin and Klein1984; MacPhee Reference MacPhee1999). Practically all large species were lost in the last 2–3 millennia (pp. 194–195, Table 9.1). According to the latest research, the first people appeared here at ca. 10,840 cal BP (Hansford et al. Reference Hansford, Wright, Rasoamiaramanana, Pérez, Godfrey, Errickson, Thompson and Turvey2018), and overkill is not the cause of the island’s fauna disappearance. The complete obliteration of larger animals is known for New Zealand; here the extinction of the flightless moa birds (Dinornis sp., Pachyornis sp., Megalapterix sp., Anomalopteryx sp., and Emeus sp.) occurred soon after the arrival of humans at ca. AD 1315 (pp. 210–211). Therefore, for this archipelago in the South Pacific overkill is the most reasonable explanation for the disappearance of larger animals. As for other islands (pp. 213–219), overkill is unlikely for the Mediterranean (Sardinia), Caribbean (Cuba), and some parts of the South Pacific (Vanuatu). On Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, the gap in the chronology of mammoth is ca. 3000 years long, between ca. 12,000 cal BP and ca. 9000 cal BP. At this time, they inhabited the nearby New Siberian Islands (e.g., Puzachenko et al. Reference Puzachenko, Markova, Kosintsev, van Kolfschoten, van der Plicht, Kuznetsova, Tikhonov, Ponomarev, Kuitems and Bachura2017). Because the first humans reached Wrangel Island ca. 400 years after the disappearance of mammoths, overkill can be dismissed (p. 218).

The concluding Chapter 13 (pp. 227–235) contains a synthesis of the information and concepts presented in this book. The essence of it is this (p. 232): “The available evidence differs widely from one region to another: (1) each region shows a different pattern in timing of extinctions; (2) the severity of extinctions varied widely from one region to another; (3) in each region there was a marked surge in extinctions only after human arrival; (4) in all regions except New Zealand, there was a substantial delay between human arrival and the majority of extinctions; (5) there are several instances of megafaunal species surviving significantly longer on islands than on the mainland; (6) extinctions in northern Eurasia—the best-studied region—convincingly correlate with environmental changes rather than the archaeological record.” According to Stuart, overkill is not a major cause of extinctions worldwide, with a few exceptions—in New Zealand, or in northern Eurasia when losses in the Holocene are not correlated with environmental changes (p. 229). In many cases, the interval of ca. 11,700–15,000 cal BP is critical for numerous large mammals that went extinct around this time, along with the drastic transformation of Late Glacial landscapes including the disappearance of the “mammoth steppe.”

Today, the insufficient number of precise dates is a major obstacle for understanding the main patterns of the Late Pleistocene megafaunal demise. Stuart highlights that “We need to know first and foremost when each species became extinct, both temporally and geographically, on the basis of many more high-quality dates for each region, made directly on securely identified megafaunal remains” (p. 234). The ¹⁴C dating in the near future should be the main research instrument in this respect.

In an Appendix (pp. 239–243), brief information about the main Late Pleistocene dating methods is given. In a section about the ¹⁴C technique (p. 241), it is stated: “The isolation and analysis of amino acids specific to bone collagen, such as hydroxyproline, is proving a powerful tool for tackling the problem of contamination, resulting in more accurate and reliable dates.” This is debatable, because it has been shown that when the collagen preservation is good and conservants are either absent or can be easily removed, the “bulk” collagen is as reliable a material for ¹⁴C dating as hydroxyproline (Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2019; Kuzmin et al. Reference Kuzmin, Fiedel, Street, Reimer, Boudin, van der Plicht, Panov and Hodgins2018).

There are some minor flaws in Stuart’s book. The majority of illustrations depicting the extinct mammals have no scale (see pp. 34–37, 41, 44, 46, 51, 58, 78, 85, 88, 120, 124, 126, 128, 130, 133, 149, 156, 159, 181, 187, and 204). The calibrated ¹⁴C dates expressed as “cal BP” in several cases are confused with “BP” ages which are uncalibrated ¹⁴C values (pp. 184–196, 202, and 206). Some ¹⁴C dates are given without lab numbers (p. 139, Table 7.1; p. 173, Table 8.1A; and pp. 194–195, Table 9.1), or are produced in non-certified facilities (p. 65, Table 5.1) (see Kuzmin et al. Reference Kuzmin, Burova, Zazovskaya, Zaretskaya, Savinetsky and Khasanov2022: 3, footnote in Table 1). There are some typo mistakes like missing a full stop at the end of a sentence (p. 105, paragraph 1); small letters at the beginning of a paragraph instead of capital ones (pp. 133, 135, and 136); and misspelling of names (p. 290, “Hodgkins” instead of “Hodgins”; and p. 293, “van der Molodin” instead of just “Molodin”).

Frankly, I truly appreciated reading this book, and despite not being a novice in Late Pleistocene extinction studies (e.g., Kuzmin et al. Reference Kuzmin, Orlova, Zolnikov and Igolnikov2000; Stuart et al. Reference Stuart, Sulerzhitsky, Orlova, Kuzmin and Lister2002), I found a lot of new information of both scientific importance and general interest. I sincerely hope that many scholars and members of the general public, who will examine this volume, would feel the same way.