ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (08/09/85)
In a recent article in net.origins, I wrote: > In recorded history, no entire species has ever perished >from a major continent other than at the hand of man. Ancient >man was not capable of this, especially not against >sabre-tooths, super-lions, Pterotorns etc. ONLY VELIKOVSKIAN >EVOLUTION CAN EXPLAIN EXTINCTION. Whole species became extinct >not from being unfit, but from being at the wrong place at the >wrong time as tidal waves rolled over whole continents and other >unhealthy events occurred. The largest animals were >particularly susceptible to extinction since they had the >hardest time getting to high ground or cover..... Wm. Jefferys of the UT astronomy dept. replied: >It is well established that the first people in the >Western hemisphere were responsible for the extinction >of most of the large mammals in North and South >America. They had nothing but stone weapons, but their >methods were extremely effective. I replied with an admittedly unfair challenge to the UT astronomy dept. to actually attempt a pteratorn hunt with spears. Before replying to some of the howls of anguish this has aroused, I would like to go over several very sound reasons for sticking with my original thesis. 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. 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. 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. 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 at best. Consider first that bows only became truly significant in warfare around 1200 AD or so with the advent of the British long bow and also of the Mongolian laminated (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. After all of that, try to picture ancient hunters taking on a pride of super-lions with reed arrows, using stone tips fired from a bow carved with stone knives. 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. Okay, so much for seriousness, now for the fun: Peter DaSilva didn't believe my statements regarding Berkut eagles. He writes: >11 Inch talons? Have you ever seen an eagle? Have you any idea >how ludicrous this is? Of course, I meant total span, not eleven inches for each individual talon or claw which would be ludicrous. But I"m not making this up, Peter, honest. Read "Bird of Jove" by David Bruce, Ballantine Books, 1971, Lib. of Cong. cat crd number 70-136799. Berkuts are found in Khirgiz country in the USSR. They are the largest, and most savage and powerful of all eagles. The book includes photographs of the 24 lb. eagle Mr. Bruce brought back to England actually killing foxes and eye-witness accounts of Berkuts killing deer. Don Heller of Shell D.C. writes: >Killing a mastodon is actually pretty easy. Get about twenty >people and throw rocks at it and eventually you can force it >over the edge of a cliff. > I love it! Someone from outer space who heard this would naturally assume Mr. Heller had killed LOTS of mastodons and no longer regarded it as a challenge. Being something of a Walter Mitty fan myself, I can't even get riled at this one. 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. People who know anything about Africa will tell you that the elephant is the ONE creature in the jungle that you do not EVER **** with, under any circumstances, for any reason. A friend of mine from Rhodesia described an event which occured ten miles from his home in which two idiots from New York city blew the horn of their little Ford Cortina at a herd of elephants which was crossing the road and taking their time about it. That, of course, to a bull elephant, is a challenge. When the elephants finished with the Cortina, it looked like a piece of modern sculpture; you couldn't tell what it was. The two idiots were luckier than they deserved to be, only cuts, bruises, and a few broken bones. They had to be cut out from under the dash with torches. In the original article, I wrote: >The problem for large birds is more appalling. I have actually >seen books which state that pterosaurs and pteratorns climbed up >mountains and then glided down again, a hell of a hard way to >have to make a living. Charles Forsythe of MIT writes: >That might explain why they died. Absolutely wrong. You missed the whole point. Let us for the sake of argument assume a uniformitarian world in which the FELT EFFECT of the force of gravity had never varied from what we experience now. Given that evolution (whether Darwinian or Velikovskian) is a process of adaptation to existing conditions, then this problem is not why they died, but why they would never have evolved in the first place. I haven't got the time or energy to reply point by point to everybody who tries to refute my articles point by point. However, none of Mr. Forsythe's points are any closer on than this one; I checked. //
bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (08/10/85)
I will simply mention the fact that the evidence for the extinction
of large mammals by the Indians is quite convincing. Ted is, of
course, free to believe it or not as he wishes.
Which reminds me: Another of the criteria by which science can
be distinguished from pseudoscience is the fact that pseudoscientists
only care to consider evidence that supports their cause, and
systematically ignore the evidence on the other side.
--
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal
Bill Jefferys 8-%
Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail)
{allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill (uucp)
bill%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA (ARPANET)bob@islenet.UUCP (Bob Cunningham) (08/12/85)
Apropos of the substance of the original article, the various species of
unique flightless birds in the Hawaiian islands appear to have become
extinct coincidentally with the original Polynesian settlers---somewhere
over 600 years ago. Extensive collections of their bones have been found
in caves along with remnants of campfires dating back to those original
settlers.
The only exception seems to have been two species of rather small and
obscure flightless rails ... both species passing away apparently about a
century ago due to extensive (human-induced) changes in their native
habitats.
All the various species of flightless birds apparently were filling what
would otherwise be an empty niche: ground-based forest predators.
Until introduced by man, the islands had no native ground mammals nor
reptiles. Indeed, the only mammal present was a unique species of
fruit-eating bat.
Incidentally, the Hawaiian islands currently have the distinction of having
more endangered species of plants and animals of any place in the world ...
not primarily because they're directly killed by humans, but because the
native ecosystems have been extensively changed by humans and various
introduced animals (rats, sheep, cattle, mongoose, etc.).
--
Bob Cunningham {dual|vortex|ihnp4}!islenet!bob
Hawaii Institute of Geophysics Computing Facilities
Honolulu, Hawaiiheller@shell.UUCP (Don Heller) (08/12/85)
Mr. Holden overreacts. > I love it! Someone from outer space who heard this would > naturally assume Mr. Heller had killed LOTS of mastodons and no > longer regarded it as a challenge. I would be *delighted* for someone from outer space to make this assumption. It's wrong of course, but how often do we get to argue with such creatures? > 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. 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. There was some other hoopla about primitive tribes living in harmony with nature and not being dumb enough to wipe out a whole species. Mr. Holden underestimates the abilities of our ancestors. -- Don Heller Computer Science Dept. Shell Development Company P.O. Box 481 Houston, Texas 77001 713-663-2341 {ihnp4, pur-ee, ut-sally}!shell!heller
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (08/13/85)
In 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. > > 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. > > 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. > > 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! > 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. > -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) {trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen