A growing body of literature proposes that our ancestors contributed to large mammal extinctions in Africa long before the appearance ofHomo sapiens, with some arguing that premodern hominins (e.g.,Homo erectus) triggered the demise of Africa's largest herbivores and the loss of carnivoran diversity. Though such arguments have been around for decades, they are now increasingly accepted by those concerned with biodiversity decline in the present-day, despite the near complete absence of critical discussion or debate. To facilitate that process, here we review ancient anthropogenic extinction hypotheses and critically examine the data underpinning them. Broadly speaking, we show that arguments made in favor of ancient anthropogenic extinctions are based on problematic data analysis and interpretation, and are substantially weakened when extinctions are considered in the context of long-term evolutionary, ecological, and environmental changes. Thus, at present, there is no compelling empirical evidence supporting a deep history of hominin impacts on Africa's faunal diversity.

中文翻译：

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在智人之前人类驱动的灭绝的不确定案例

越来越多的文献表明，我们的祖先早在非洲出现大型哺乳动物灭绝之前就已经促成了这种灭绝。智人，有些人认为前现代人（例如，直立人) 引发了非洲最大的食草动物的灭绝和食肉动物多样性的丧失。尽管这样的论点已经存在了几十年，但它们现在越来越被那些关注当今生物多样性下降的人所接受，尽管几乎完全没有批判性讨论或辩论。为了促进这一过程，我们在这里回顾了古代人为灭绝假设，并批判性地检查了支撑它们的数据。从广义上讲，我们表明支持古代人为灭绝的论点是基于有问题的数据分析和解释，并且当在长期进化、生态和环境变化的背景下考虑灭绝时，这些论点会大大削弱。因此，目前，