![]() ![]() as it was in the Pleistocene, rather than extinction of a native by an introduced species." Speculating that horses naturalized easily because they were returning to the ecosystem they evolved in, Flannery calls their encroachment on contemporary bighorn sheep habitat "an instance of range stabilization. But their African and European descendants were "reintroduced" by the Spanish, and by the 1800s vast wild herds roamed the Southwest. Horses, having originated in North America, succumbed with the other mammals here in the Pleistocene epoch 13,000 years ago. Most of the political and social history in the last third of "The Eternal Frontier" is an uninspired rehash of American history, but Flannery does hark back to some of his ecological themes. This failure to synthesize material, combined with a certain logical discord in presentation, makes it difficult to follow threads of cause and effect over time. And the relationships among fauna, ecosystem, climate and geology is fed to us in a few sweeping, textbooklike statements. The epoch's diverse plant communities and increasingly harsh winters get only passing mention. We learn about the large rhinos and elephantlike gomphotheres that roamed Miocene grasslands and about the evolution of camels, horses and pronghorns. Major geologic and climatic events form the backbone for "The Eternal Frontier," but Flannery, whose specialty is mammals, focuses his narrative on the changing fauna. ![]()
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