Excavated mammoth bones from Siberia’s Yana archaeological site suggest that people hunted mammoths mainly for ivory, which they used to make tools. [Stanislav Remezov]
Posted on 06/15/2013 9:54:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Contrary to their hunting reputation, Stone Age Siberians killed mammoths only every few years when they needed tusks for toolmaking, a new study finds.
People living between roughly 33,500 and 31,500 years ago hunted the animals mainly for ivory, say paleontologist Pavel Nikolskiy and archaeologist Vladimir Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Hunting could not have driven mammoths to extinction, the researchers report June 5 in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
On frigid tundra with few trees, mammoth tusks substituted for wood as a raw material for tools, they propose. Siberian people ate mammoth meat after hunts, but food was not their primary goal.
Several European and North American sites have yielded single mammoth carcasses lying amid stone tools. Such finds could reflect either hunting or scavenging. Finds at Siberia’s Yana archeological site provide an unprecedented window on the hunting and killing of mammoths over a long time period, says archaeologist John Hoffecker of the University of Colorado Boulder.
Mammoth bones appear in sufficient numbers at some sites in Europe to suggest that hunters there did seek more than ivory, says archaeologist Jiri Svoboda of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Whatever happened at Yana, many groups were probably interested in obtaining mammoth meat, fat, bones, tusks and skin, Svoboda says.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Excavated mammoth bones from Siberia’s Yana archaeological site suggest that people hunted mammoths mainly for ivory, which they used to make tools. [Stanislav Remezov]
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Put yourself in their shoes. No gun. Perhaps some arrows and spears, taking on a Mammoth. If given a choice....I’d pick rabbits, fish, and deer. The last thing on my mind would be spending a Friday afternoon hunting up a herd of the woolly beasts.
Let’s see, I’m a paleolithic Siberian male with stone tools. I’m about 5’4” and weigh about 130 lbs. There’s a rabbit over there, or 2000 lb mammoth over here. Which shall I hunt? Decisions, decisions.
Duh!
They probably hunted them like Africans did 3-400 years ago_ gut wound them and then track them for a week until the elephant died. While not safe, two or three people could feed a village for a month.
That depends on how often you want to hut—or whether you’re having ‘family’ over...
Saw an article some time back about the discovery of an ancient house made with about 100 mammoth tusks.
The owner was a good hunter.
The picture looks like maybe they stumbled upon the trash pit from an early Texas BBQ hut!
related link at the original:
Neandertals’ mammoth building project
Extinct hominids may have been first to build with bones
By Bruce Bower
Web edition: December 2, 2011
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2817549/posts
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336659/description/Neandertals_mammoth_building_project
another of the most-watched:
Now-extinct wolf may be ancestor of modern-day dogs
No strong signs of canine ancestry among living grey wolves
By Tina Hesman Saey
Web edition: June 10, 2013
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350913/description/Now-extinct_wolf_may_be_ancestor_of_modern-day_dogs
The Neandertal Enigma"Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
“Several European and North American sites have yielded single mammoth carcasses lying amid stone tools.” The described scene, would suggest another or other predators, taking over the kill. These folks would not abandon tools.
“Stupid Og. He never returns any of the tools he borrows from me. I guess I’ll have to go kill a mammoth and make another adjustable wrench.”
Good point!
beat me to it....if all I had was spears, I’d be nuts to go after anything bigger than a dog...If they hunted mammoths that explains their demise
LOL mammoths win every time...the skin would be so thick a scrawny spear would bounce off it...
They must have needed a lot of potato salad, which probably explains why they colonized the Americas.
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![Excavated mammoth bones from Siberia’s Yana archaeological site suggest that people hunted mammoths mainly for ivory, which they used to make tools. [Stanislav Remezov]](http://www.sciencenews.org/view/download/id/350961/name/BEACH_BONEYARD.jpg)