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!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------