Also, with short summers at the Northern limits of the temperate zone most of the area wold be one big refrigerator for most of the year. Humans with the capability of entering into the near-tundra could dine well on the animals who’d simply dropped dead.
I agree. The people who lived some 15,000 years ago at Monte Verde in southern Chile used mammoth bones extensively in building their own shelters. Some have cited that as proof they hunted the creatures to extinction. I think it’s more likely they simply scavenged these ready-made building components from the skeletons of animals that died from other causes. Humans are magnificent scroungers and pretty ingenious when it comes to using “found” materials.