20 Prehistoric Animals That Lived Alongside Our Ancestors

The woolly mammoth survived into the Holocene in some regions, coexisting with our Paleolithic ancestors for a very long time. Climate change transformed its grasslands into forests, human hunters moved in closer, and the last isolated population on Wrangel Island likely met a sudden end about 4,000 years ago, perhaps due to disease or a forest fire.

Larger and less shaggy than the woolly mammoth, the Colombian mammoth survived long enough on the North American continent to coexist with the region’s earliest known human populations. Climate warming and the presence of Paleo-Indian hunters in the same territory proved to be a combination it could not withstand.

At the Manis site in Washington State, researchers discovered a human-made projectile point embedded in a mastodon rib. Global warming had reduced their grazing habitat around the time that Paleo-Indian hunters were leaving these spear points behind, and about 10,500 years ago, they disappeared.

The smilodon lived on the American continent during the Pleistocene, coexisting with human populations that had settled there before the end of the Ice Age. When climate change and competition from humans led to the extinction of the megafauna on which it depended for food, the resulting cascade of prey loss led to the extinction of the smilodon about 10,000 years ago.

No, it’s not just a mythical creature. The giant wolf was a real canid, larger and more robust than today’s gray wolf, that roamed the same Ice Age landscapes as the first inhabitants of North America. The collapse of large prey populations after the Pleistocene, combined with competition from humans and gray wolves, led to their extinction about 9,500 years ago.

At Campo Laborde in Argentina, evidence suggests that this was a site where a giant ground sloth was hunted and butchered during the late Pleistocene. Humans were there. The sloth was there. Human hunting and the spread of aridification across South America about 10,000 years ago led to the extinction of this species.

Glyptodonts resembled oversized, armored cousins of today’s armadillos; they survived throughout the Pleistocene on the American continent. Paleo-Indian hunters valued them for their meat and perhaps also for the shelter they provided, and their extinction, about 10,000 years ago, closely coincides with the widespread extinction of megafauna.

Cave bears lived in Europe during the Pleistocene alongside Neanderthals and later modern humans, sharing the same glacial environment as our ancestors. As the climate warmed and their cave habitats disappeared, competition with humans and Neanderthals for dens led to their extinction about 24,000 years ago.

People of the Upper Paleolithic knew cave lions well enough to paint them at Chauvet. These depictions were not based on folklore or distant memories. As their main prey—particularly mammoths and reindeer—disappeared and human pressure intensified, cave lions went extinct about 14,000 years ago.

The woolly rhinoceros survived throughout the Pleistocene and appears in prehistoric cave art, thus providing evidence of its coexistence with humans during the Ice Age. The rapid warming that followed the Last Glacial Maximum, combined with hunting by humans—as evidenced by spear wounds observed on frozen mummies—led to its extinction approximately 14,000 years ago.

The Irish elk stood 2.1 m at the withers and had antlers measuring 3.65 m and weighing 40 kg. This animal, with long legs adapted to the tundra and a thick skull, roamed the territories inhabited by humans across Eurasia. When the tundra turned into forest about 7,700 years ago, those large antlers proved to be fatal.

The steppe bison had a thick, woolly coat, large curved horns, and a sturdy build, perfectly adapted to the steppes of the Ice Age. It inhabited the cold grasslands that people crossed in Eurasia and Beringia. Its extinction was caused by climate change that led to the shrinking of the steppes about 7,000 years ago, as well as intense hunting pressure from humans.

The history of the aurochs spans from the Pleistocene through to historical times, during which it coexisted with both prehistoric hunters and agricultural societies. The loss of its habitat due to the expansion of agriculture, overhunting, and the shrinking of its range led to the extinction of the last wild aurochs in Poland in 1627.

In Kashmir, researchers have discovered evidence suggesting that prehistoric humans hunted a straight-tusked elephant more than 300,000 years ago, making this coexistence particularly ancient. The species went extinct as early human populations expanded and the climatic cycles of the Ice Age repeatedly reshaped its habitats.

The largest marsupial ever known was still widespread in Australia when the first Indigenous peoples arrived there. A combination of human hunting and more insidious pressures related to changes in the Australian landscape led to their extinction during the Pleistocene.

A giant, flightless bird that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene, whose fossils have been found alongside human-made artifacts. Imposing. Flightless. Apparently hard to avoid. All evidence suggests that hunting by humans was the main factor that led to this bird’s extinction.

One of the largest cats ever to have lived in North America, it was still present when humans had already settled the continent. As the Pleistocene extinctions decimated the species on which it preyed, the American lion disappeared permanently from the continent about 11,000 years ago.

Giant beavers lived in North America throughout the Pleistocene and became extinct toward the end of that period. They don’t attract as much attention as mammoths or saber-toothed tigers, but a beaver the size of a black bear would certainly have made a lasting impression. Their fate was linked to the general collapse of the megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene.

At Grotta Guattari in Italy, a hyena den dating from the late Pleistocene is associated with one of Europe’s most famous Neanderthal discoveries. Caves during the Ice Age were shared spaces. When warming set in about 13,000 years ago and competition with humans and wolves for carrion intensified, the cave hyenas lost that struggle.

Megalania, a giant monitor lizard now classified as Varanus priscus, was part of the world into which Australia’s Indigenous peoples arrived at least 65,000 years ago. Like much of Australia’s Pleistocene megafauna, it became extinct as human presence spread across the continent.