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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: more on killing mastodons etc.
Message-ID: <680@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 10:56:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.680
Posted: Thu Aug 15 10:56:55 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 08:16:39 EDT
References: <372@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 33

In article <372@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes about the
difficulties primitive men might have had exterminating various megafauna
in prehistoric America.  He provides some fine ridicule of rock-throwing
and cliff-falling ideas.

However, some of us have much greater trust in man's destructive abilities,
as well as some anthropological knowledge.

Off the top of my head, I can think of several other techniques adequate
for eradicating a number of species of megafauna.  Such as:
1) Pit traps.  A broken leg from a small pit could handicap a mammoth
   sufficiently to make it relatively easy to kill.
2) Using fires to drive into traps or kill directly.
3) Poisons.  Elephants, girraffe and other large game are still killed
   today by slow-acting poisons in wounds.
4) Habitat destruction.  Frequent burning, introduction of dogs (which would
   change grazing patterns by killing or chasing herbivores), etc. could
   change habitats sufficiently to cause specialized herbivores to starve.
   Specialized carnivores could die out when their prey species were
   eliminated.
5) Deprivation of key resource bottlenecks.  Such as water holes, migratory
   routes, salt licks, etc.  If prehistoric America was anything like
   recent Africa is, game was not randomly distributed: it followed clear
   migratory routes between resources critical for survival.  A tribe
   occupying a critical point on such a route could systematically exterminate
   the entire population using that route.

These are only a few of the multitudinous ways humans have killed large
animals.  We don't know which techniques or in what combination they might
have been used, but it's not simple to rule them out.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh