A new study has recently revealed that the controversial theory, which explains that a cosmic impact triggered the killing of giants like mammoths, may not be after all true.
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The study done by University Of California stated that rock soil droplets are formed by heating most likely came from Stone Age house fires and not from a disastrous cosmic impact 12,900 years ago which gave rise to extinction of many giant beast.
Scientists examined the siliceous scoria droplets or the porous granules that are associated with melting from four sites in northern Syria around 10,000 to 13,000 years ago, and compared them to similar scoria droplets previously suggested to be the result of a cosmic impact at the onset of the Younger Dryas.
The researchers firstly concluded that the composition of the scoria droplets was related to the local soil and not to soil from other continents, as one would expect from an intercontinental impact.
Secondly, they mentioned that the texture of the droplets, thermodynamic modeling and other analyses showed the droplets were formed by short-lived heating events of modest temperatures, and not by the intense, high temperatures expected from a large impact event.
Lastly scientists said that in a key finding, the samples collected from archaeological sites spanned 3,000 years.
Peter Thy, lead author said that for the Syria side, the impact theory is out, and if there would be one cosmic impact then they should be connected by one date and not a period of 3,000 years.
The study, of soil from Syria, discredited the controversial theory that a thousand years and coincided with the extinction of mammoths and other great beasts and the disappearance of the Paleo-Indian Clovis people.
The researchers then after put forward the idea that the Younger Dryas cool period, which fell between two major glaciations, began when a comet or meteorite struck North America.
The study is published online in the Journal of 'Archaeological Science'.
