This is John Batchelor. Conversation with the author Dan Flores, his book Wild New World,

the epic story of animals and people in America, the North America, South America, the New

World. About 2.5 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago is the Pleistocene era, the ice age.

That is the period, probably between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago, that the bridge from

Siberia to North America was intact, and there was a corridor in the ice to reach North America.

There's also a suggestion that the people coming used canoes and rafts down the coastline.

The animals also came.

And those animals occupied North America 2.5 to 11,000 years ago. When the people

arrived, however, super predation. So who survived and who didn't depended upon whether the animals

were savvy, creatures of all kinds,

savvy about human beings.

Dan Flores identifies this period of winnowing.

The mammoths went away, for example.

His Dan Flores, much more of this tonight,

especially about hunting in the modern era,

19th, 18th century in North America.

Dan Flores, much more of this later on tonight.

Highly recommend it.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

And the primary reason the animals that came here from other parts of the world

did have an advantage, at least when humans arrive,

was because they had prior experience with us.

...