Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh 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