Boy, you guys!
I have not disected each post really carefully but I will still put forward my opinions.
My comments on this interesting discussion are:
1. You both seem to be talking past each other. I think you all agree that a combination of factors was probably responsible.
2. There doesn't appear to be enough evidence to support any firm conclusions. You both seem to make statments about a variety of things without evidence.
As I understand Mammuthuses position he is trying to look at an hypothesis that *might* have evidence for it. He is *not* trying to look at all possible causes. His work would then be integrated with other work to try to arrive at a bigger picture.
However, given the amount of thought you've all put into this, my opinions may be the least valuable input in the thread.