An entire civilisation that suddenly vanished off the face of the earth 12,900 years ago — along with several species of prehistoric animals — may have been made extinct because of a devastating comet strike.

The extinction of the Clovis people, a culture of Paleo-Americans, has long been blamed on the planet's emergence from the Ice Age.

Now, however, it has emerged that one of the biggest calamities man has ever faced may have been caused by an apocalyptic strike by a comet, which broke into giant fragments, smashing into Earth.

Researchers from the University of Oregon say that they have found nanodiamonds scattered throughout North America in sediments, dating from the era that this extinction took place.

The scientists say the discovery shows that a high-pressure, high-temperature event such as a comet attack may have taken place there causing the epoch known as the Younger Dryas impact.

In a paper published in the journal Science, Douglas J. Kennett said that the discovery gave scientists a "big idea" about what had happened.

"It's a hypothesis. Basically, there's a suite of data that suggests that something like this occurred, but it still needs to be tested," he said.

The dramatic, apocalyptic scenario not only led to the vanishing of the Clovis people, but also most of the largest animals such as horses, camels, lions, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and giant armadillos.

The comet hypothesis has, however, been hotly contested by some in the scientific community because no craters have been found or rock debris which would usually be expected in the event of a massive meteor strike.

David Morrison, a Nasa space scientist, told the Washington Post: "They may have discovered something absolutely marvellous and unexplained. But the impact hypothesis just doesn't make sense.

"What size impact does it take to produce diamonds? What size crater would that be? Where is it? If it hit the ocean, would it have had the same effect? These are all questions one can ask."

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