what is the name of the first extinction
Extinction event The Great Oxygenation Event was probably the first major extinction event. Since the Cambrian explosion five further major mass extinctions have significantly exceeded the background extinction rate. The most recent and arguably best-known, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which occurred approximately 66 million years ago (Ma), was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time.[2] In addition to the five major mass extinctions, there are numerous minor ones as well, and the ongoing mass extinction caused by human activity is sometimes called the sixth extinction.[3] Mass extinctions seem to be a mainly Phanerozoic phenomenon, with extinction rates low before large complex organisms arose.[4]
Paleolithic The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna, although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans.[17][18] New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting.[18] Scientists suggest that climate change during the end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink in size, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans.[18] The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible.[18] Small populations of wooly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island, until c. 3700 BCE and c. 1700 BCE respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around the same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans.[19] There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BCE were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands).[20]