Here's my question: if humans caused megafauna extinction, why did this not happen in Africa? That's where many of the megafauna continue to live. But humans came from Africa.
Scavenging spoiled meat is a fairly classic natural trait, and even apex predators won't pass up an easy snack.
'Controlled' rotting.
There are fungus and bacteria in the aging process, just the temperature and humidity is controlled.
But, not sure of exact technical definition of 'rotting' is, or 'aging'. So we'd be debating different definitions.
I'd say generally both have fungus and bacteria, and 'aging' is under controlled conditions, and 'rotting' is just out in out door environment which is different temperature and humidity.
It has to be said that humans in particular have stomach acidity on the levels of scavenger type meat eaters.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...
There's been a decent amount of research on the relation between stomach pH and diet, with animal species that have pronounced scavenger tendencies being on the lowest end of the spectrum, which puts an interesting light on the sort of diet the earliest humans may have had.
>McKenzie observed something else as well. Once hauled from the water, the carcasses “were left for some time to Season into a flavor then carried home and at feasts are reckoned a great delicacy.” McKenzie found these ripened “float bison” revolting. But they were a delicacy – documented by many observers – for Missouri River peoples. The more rotten the flesh, the more appealing it was. “When the skin is raised you will see the flesh of a greenish hue, and ready to become alive at the least exposure to the sun,” McKenzie said, the meat, “so ripe, so tender, that very little boiling is required – the stench is absolutely intolerable.” The Indians preferred float bison “to any other kind of food.” It boiled up into a “bottle green” soup that the Mandans “reckoned delicious.” Indeed, McKenzie said, “so fond are the Mandanes of putrid meat that they bury animals whole in the winter for consumption of the Spring.”
I would love to know what kind of microbiome people have that can eat putrid meat. Or perhaps we all have that ability :)
[1] https://centerofthewest.org/2017/08/01/mandan-strong-spirits...
> In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The precise definition of the term varies widely, though a common threshold is approximately 45 kilograms (99 lb), with other thresholds as low as 10 kilograms (22 lb) or as high as 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb). Large body size is generally associated with other traits, such as having a slow rate of reproduction, and in large herbivores, reduced or negligible adult mortality from being killed by predators.