Prehistoric sloths, mastodons coexisted with humans, research finds [Video]

SAO PAULO, Brazil –

Sloths weren’t always slow-moving, furry tree-dwellers. Their prehistoric ancestors were huge — up to four tons (3.6 metric tons) — and when startled, they brandished immense claws.

For a long time, scientists believed the first humans to arrive in the Americas soon killed off these giant ground sloths through hunting, along with many other massive animals like mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that once roamed North and South America.

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But new research from several sites is starting to suggest that people came to the Americas earlier — perhaps far earlier — than once thought. These findings hint at a remarkably different life for these early Americans, one in which they may have spent millennia sharing prehistoric savannas and wetlands with enormous beasts.

“There was this idea that humans arrived and killed everything off …