[net.origins] more on killing large animals/a longish reply to Ted

pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (pam pincha) (08/27/85)

In article <377@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>
>    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.

I DO know what I'm talking about-- having helped dig and research some
of these topics. I also love correcting misinformation.

>>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.
>>
>     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.

Sorry.You are a few centuries too late!!! Bone studies of garbage heaps
and kill sites HAVE SHOWN that ancient man DID EAT HORSES!!!
REMEMBER the hunters we are talking about lived 30,000 to 12,000 YEARS
AGO. This is quite a bit PRIOR to the domestication of the horse!!!
You cannot use what you know of current tribe attitudes toward animals
in this context -- it's much too current!!!
>
>>>
>>>          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.
>>
>     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.
>The chance of them or their ancestors ever having
>exterminated any species by hunting is zero.

See above.  Again you are looking at the wrong thing.You are taking a
long line of tradition and trying to apply it before it evolved.
This is going to lead to very wrong conclusions that are NOT SUPPORTED
BY THE EVIDENCE FROM THAT TIME PERIOD!!!
>>>
>>>          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.  

Fire, dear boy, fire. A very important weapon! Be it torches or
set range fires. It was and still is very effective against bison,
horses, and ELEPHANTS. Especially if they think they have a way
out. The technique is that you start the stampede far enough
away from the cliff that they feel they can run. Granted, this
may not work every time, but it works often enogh to make it
viable. (Note: neither does this method kill of all of a herd
just a significant portion -- but that was enough at the time.
these animals were in a highly stressed position at this time
period. All it took was a little of the wrong push to wipe them out.)

ALSO -- the sites show NO EVIDENCE OF THE ANIMALS BEING WASHED
OVER THE CLIFFS!!!!!!!! (Believe me, as a geologist AND archeologist
,it isn't difficult to tell when water has played a role in
such an event. REAL EASY!!!!!)

FURTHERMORE -- These sites have indesputable evidence of
lots of human involvement at these sites. The bones show
good evidence of stone cutting tools being used to scrape,
chop, and saw the animals apart. Some of the animals still
have fluted stone points imbedded in vertebrae and shoulder
bones (some still fresh indicating that the kill was
succesful; others showing growth over the point indicating
that the hunter blew it!). The placement and positions of
the points, bones, landscapes and such are all too related
to indicate these were just scavengers after a big
catastrophy (ESPECIALLY when the is no evidence of one.
It is not difficult to tell when water,fire, or earthquake
has affected an area!).

>>>          4.   Attempting to  kill the PREDATERS of the archaic world would
>>>               require modern weapons.

 NEVER underestimate human ingenuity!!!  These guys made it across
frozen tundra with little food sources and little but skins and
stone tools (which are VERY SHARP! In fact some surgens are using
obsidian blades in some delicate operations because it holds
an edge longer and is sharper than metal!). It's not that difficult.

>    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. 

That's exactlly what the sites indicate! (Actually they cut the beasts
up right at the kill sites and carted of the food to the nearby camp
sites.  These guys were nomadic. They followed the herds. That may
be one reason that they migrated into North America in the first
place.)

At this point, I am disapointed in the quality of these responses
in this article. It seems fraught with numerous instances
of either no information of massive mis-information on
the large body of evidence involved in this particular hypothesis
about the these extinctions.

Please go to the nearest university library and check into
the reams of site descriptions and VERY detailed studies
of the Big Game Hunter Gatherer tradition in North America.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
					P.M.Pincha-Wagener
					(bcsaic!pamp)
(usual disclaimer)
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