Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site bcsaic.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!pamp From: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: more on killing mastodons etc. Message-ID: <234@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 19:46:00 EDT Article-I.D.: bcsaic.234 Posted: Thu Aug 22 19:46:00 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 13:19:26 EDT References: <372@imsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 69 Summary: In article <372@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >> In real >> life, of course, a thirty lb. boulder falling on a Mammoth or >> Imperial elephants head MIGHT have gotten his attention. Twenty >> people throwing rocks at him would undoubtedly have gotten him >> pissed off. > >Mr. Heller now replies: >>Getting the [mastodon|elephant|...] pissed off is the whole point. Then you >>can get it to do something stupid, like killing itself in the fall off a cliff. > Remember now, the original discussion was about the possability that >man caused the total EXTINCTION of mammoths, mastodons, imperial elephants etc. >I will admit that men could have killed an occasional elephant, although at a >cost in human lives. That is a very far cry from killing ALL of them. Note the theories of the extinction of the larger mammals by man never states that the hunter-gathering groups at the time killed them ALL Off!!! What it does state is that man re-enterred the area just after an "ice age". The environment was in a very delicate state of balance. The species at that time may have been having problems because the environment was changing so rapidly.(Meaning that their adaptations to a particular niche was becoming more of a hinderance than an asset.) (Note it is also in these periods of transition that most species either change and adapt if the conditions are right, or they die out.) The Big game Hunter-Gatherer groups that arrived changed that delicate balance through their hunting techniques (which consisted mainly of stampeding herding animals over cliffs)(This was NOT the time period of hunting only for those animals that one needs for food. Sites have been uncovered with hundreds of herd animal skeletons, only a few of which show Human slaughtering.) These techniques (that included not only the cliff stampeding with fire and such, but also included some atlatl thrown spears with very sharp, well manufactured flint and obsidian fluted points) possibly upset the balance of the food chain enough to cause several species to die out. So the basic premise is that a combination of rapid environmental changes causing stress to several species numbers along with the advent of man and his mass slaughtering techniques that killed off the larger mammals. (Remember that the death of these herd animals would severly affect the carnivores which are generally smaller in number anyway....) (Another side note to an earlier comment about how could men have been so stupid as to kill off the horses..... One has to remember that horses were NOT domesticated some 15000 to 10000 years ago. They were small,scrawny beast considered to be quite tasty morsels. Furthermore they were also herd animals, easily scared, and driven off cliffs. Lets face it they haven't develope many more smarts since then. For animals as large as they are they are still cowards!) > There also remains the problem of how this technique was used to >exterminate the elephants in Oklahoma and the plains states, where excavating >artificial cliffs would have been very difficult in the age before bulldozers. One doesn't need a 100ft cliff. Just a few feet, and a lot of running beasts, and thats all you need. The kill sites that have been found have been just such places. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.M.Pincha-Wagener (Don't blame Boeing for any of MY ideas and/or opinions!) -----------------------------------------------------------------------