Another Take On Mammoth Extinction

[Auspex]

"...evidence to suggest that climate change, rather than humans, was the main factor that drove the woolly mammoth to extinction."

>LINK<

[DD1991]

For centuries, it's been common for artists to use depictions of cavemen killing woolly mammoths with spears as a poster child for the Ice Age extinctions. However, what is lacking is a woolly mammoth carcass with a spear embedded in the flesh to prove that the human race played a role in the extinction of the woolly mammoth. To give you a clear insight into the hypothesis that the woolly mammoths were killed off by factors unrelated to human activity, there is paleoclimatic evidence that the extinction of woolly mammoths was a rather gradual one, with trees displacing the grasses on which the mammoths depended for their survival in the cold (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11000635). The cavemen may have played a special role in exterminating the woolly mammoths, but the overkill hypothesis does not take into account the fact that the woolly mammoth populations survived for thousands of years until the last years of the ice age, so we may finally see climate change as the penultimate culprit of the extinction of mammoths if more evidence in favor of the climate change hypothesis comes into light.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

A modern bull African elephant is said to stand about 9 feet at the shoulder. Pretty scary quarry even for a seasoned hunter with a big bore rifle. They have been known to dispatch humans by stomping on the chest, then ripping the limbs off with their trunk. A bull mammoth may have stood 14 feet at the shoulder. I don't reckon I'd be running up and poking one with a sharp stick!

[Auspex]

I cannot imagine that man played no role at all in the megafaunal extinctions, but I suspect that, were the Mammoth population otherwise robust, the takings would have been compensatory rather than additive.

[MarkGelbart]

This article is total BS.

For centuries, it's been common for artists to use depictions of cavemen killing woolly mammoths with spears as a poster child for the Ice Age extinctions. However, what is lacking is a woolly mammoth carcass with a spear embedded in the flesh to prove that the human race played a role in the extinction of the woolly mammoth. To give you a clear insight into the hypothesis that the woolly mammoths were killed off by factors unrelated to human activity, there is paleoclimatic evidence that the extinction of woolly mammoths was a rather gradual one, with trees displacing the grasses on which the mammoths depended for their survival in the cold (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11000635). The cavemen may have played a special role in exterminating the woolly mammoths, but the overkill hypothesis does not take into account the fact that the woolly mammoth populations survived for thousands of years until the last years of the ice age, so we may finally see climate change as the penultimate culprit of the extinction of mammoths if more evidence in favor of the climate change hypothesis comes into light.

But there is evidence of arrowheads embedded in Columbian mammoths so we can safely assume humans killed woolly mammoths as well. The odds of fossilization are so rare that it is ridiculous to expect that we would find any evidence of humans hunting mammoths.

This study is total BS. During the Pleistocene there was never a shortage of food that mammoths would eat. We know exactly what they ate. Their stomach contents contain the exact same foods that have always been found abundantly in the environment. they were not picky eaters. Sure, their populations fluctuated with changes in climate, but they didn't become extinct until man arrives on the scene. Man was in Eurasia 30,000 years ago, so man can not be ruled out as the culprit in that extinction there. Men made houses out of mammoth bones around that time period--a fact the authors of this study must totally ignore.

Woolly mammoths did not become extinct until 6000 BP. There was an isolated population of them on an island off the Russian coast. Their extinction there is not linked whatsoever with climate change. The late extinction of mammoths on Pribiloff Islands completely debunks a climate-change model of extinction.

[MarkGelbart]

A modern bull African elephant is said to stand about 9 feet at the shoulder. Pretty scary quarry even for a seasoned hunter with a big bore rifle. They have been known to dispatch humans by stomping on the chest, then ripping the limbs off with their trunk. A bull mammoth may have stood 14 feet at the shoulder. I don't reckon I'd be running up and poking one with a sharp stick!

The video below shows that a group of humans with spears vs. an elephant is an easy one-sided slaughter.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3fe_1200181689

Warning: This video is graphic. If you don't like seeing animals suffer, don't watch it.

Realize this: The technology these African tribesmen are using is less sophisticated than what the Paleo-Indians used. The Africans aren't even using atlatls.

Edited September 13, 2013 by MarkGelbart