Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted
From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: more on killing large animals/reply to S. Friesen
Message-ID: <377@imsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 13:19:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: imsvax.377
Posted: Mon Aug 19 13:19:56 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 16:13:22 EDT
Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD
Lines: 119


    I love it when some of these people who obviously don't know what
they're talking about try to refute my articles point by point!  Lets
consider Stanley Friesen's latest such attempt, point by point.

>n article <367@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>>
>>
>>          1.   Several useful animal species  including  horses  and camels
>>               became extinct  in the  Americas several thousand years ago.
>>               No ancient tribe in its right mind would  exterminate all of
>>               the horses in it's local.
>
>     Not deliberately, but it is quite concievable that they could
>do it by accident, look what is happening to Anchovies now! Look at
>the Carrier Pigeon! It is amaxing how easily a species can be driven
>to extinction quite by accident.

     Men don't RIDE anchovies, Stanley.  Ancient man protected horses to
the limit of his ability.  During the great catastrophies of the past,
this limit was often exceeded.

>>
>>          2.   The natives which the first white men in America encountered
>>               were living in perfect harmony with nature, killing only for
>>               food.  Since  one mammoth would feed a large tribe for a hell
>>               of a  long  time,  there  is  no  chance  that  these people
>>               exterminated the mammoths.
>
>Has it occured to you that this harmony was a result of
>learning from thier mistakes! That perhaps after wiping out several
>major food species they learned how to hunt without excess.
>
     Yes it has occured to me, Stanley.  So has the likelihood of the sun
coming up in the West tommorrow morning.  The American Indians regarded
animals as their BROTHERS.  They formally appeased the totem of the deers
after killing a deer.  The chance of them or their ancestors ever having
exterminated any species by hunting is zero.  Likewise, the pygmies of today
make no dent in the elephant herds of Africa by their hunting.

>>
>>          3.   There is  a hell  of a  difference between  trying to kill a
>>               lone elephant, a  straggler  or  lone  bull,  and  trying to
>>               exterminate elephants  generally.  The  latter would involve
>>               attacking HERDS of elephants in which  the females  would be
>>               attempting to protect the young, FAR more dangerous.
>
>     Admittedly, but the archeological evidence is unquestionable,
>early man did just that! The basic method of hunting mammoths &c was
>to stampede them over cliffs and then pick up the remains. There are
>just too many of these massacre sites to doubt that this happened.
>Of course it was dangerous, and people probably got killed doing it,
>but people get killed flying airplanes, a much less necessary
>activity, and we still keep doing it.

     Elephants, when stampeded, tend to stampede TOWARDS the stampeders,
Stanley.  That's why it's hard to get volunteers for stampeeding them.
It is entirely possible, however, that at the times of the great catastrophies
which we catastrophists believe in, that a herd of elephants occasionally got
WASHED over a cliff.  Tribes of men, finding all this a day or two later, might
have feasted (if you could call eating elephants a feast), on the remains.
"Scientists", like some on the net, finding the remains of said feast along with
campfire signs and a spear point or two which someone lost or left lying around
naturally assume that, at great risk to themselves and for no sensible reason,
ancient tribes STAMPEDED those elephants off that cliff.  Two points I would
like to make:

1.    I hope none of my ancestors was amongst them (i.e. I hope I am in no way
      related to anyone that STUPID).

2.    If I was that talented at mis-interpreting evidence, I would be a lawyer
      instead of a computer scientist.


>>
>>          4.   Attempting to  kill the PREDATERS of the archaic world would
>>               require modern weapons.  I just can't picture anyone killing
>>               a pteratorn or a north American super-lion (five feet at the
>>               shoulders) or an ice-age giant cave  bear with  spears.  The
>>               status of  archery in ancient north America is problematical
>>.....
>>               (wood and animal horn) recurve bow.  Consider also that Fred
>>               Bear, one of America's foremost  bow  hunters  and  owner of
>>               Bear Archery Co., made several attempts to kill a polar bear
>>               with a  modern  70  lb. hunting  bow  using  modern aluminum
>>               arrows with  steel tips.  He had a buddy backing him up with
>>               a 300 magnum rifle on each occasion and it was only on about
>>               the fifth  try that he didn't NEED that friend along.
>>

>Actually, early man probably didn't actively hunt these
>preditors, but the lion, at least, has a tendency to attempt to steal
>other predators food, and I am sure early man tried to defend his
>hard-won prey. Remember, early hunting was a *group* effort, so the
>difficulty a *single* had in killing a bear has little bearing on
>the results of 20-30 hunters shooting at the same bear. Modern sport
>hunting is quite different from the subsistence hunting of early man!

     The super-lions and wolf-bears hunted in packs of 20 or thirty too,
Stanley.  And they were VERY big and had VERY BIG and SHARP teeth.


>
>>          5.   Consider that rabbits and deer are tastier than elephants or
>>               super-bisons  etc.,  have  always  been  plentiful  in north
>>               America, and can be trapped and killed without  exposing the
>>               hunters to any extreme danger.  Enough said.
>>
>No, the food value of a Bison or Elephant is far greater than
>such small prey. The problem with hunting for a living is effort required
>to catch the prey. The large food value of large prey means more food
>for less effort, and thus maximal hunting efficiency.

    Ever try dragging a mammoth back home to the camp, Stanley?  Or moving
the camp to each new mammoth you kill?  Sounds like a lot of work to me.  One
last note on mammoths.  I'm not sure of this one, just a guess really.  But if
elephants taste anything even remotely like the way they SMELL, then eating
elephants would have to be just marginally less painful than starving.  I'd
much prefer to stick with the deer and rabbits, myself.