From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:17:45 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <118792@muvms3.bitnet> rcbi27@muvms3.bitnet (DBRUM) writes:
|A couple of questions:
|
|1)  If Mastadon extinctions in North America were due to over-predation
|    by humans, how come their other, later sources of animal food were
|    not exhausted by them also (i.e., Buffalo, etc.)?

This is not a problem at all.  The answer is simple - cultural change.
The Amerindian cultures we are familiar with probably did not exist as
such prior to the Great Draught of the 12-13th centuries A.D.
And even if the immediate pre-draught cultures were essentially similar to
the modern ones, the Archaic and Paleo Indian cultures were *vastly*
different, as can be demonstrated by thier remains.  Thus we can base
little of no conclusions about the Clovis (and pre-Clovis) cultures on
what Amerindians are like today.

Not that I necessarily accept the anthropogenic extinction theory, it is
just that this is an invalid objection to it.

|    The North American
|    natives of historic times had/have a very strong feeling for the 
|    land and the creatures upon it for which they depended/depend on their
|    livelyhood. In all the "Indian theory" I have ever heard, the wild
|    land itself was looked upon and looked after as a sort of vast and
|    all-encompassing farm which it was man's responsibility to husband
|    and cause to continually prosper.

Yes, that is what *modern* (post 1250) Amerindian cultures were like.
This philosophy may even have existed further back, but it is a big leap
to assume it was present in the Clovis people.

In fact, watching the changes in attitude occurring in *our* culture
right now due to the extinctions *we* are causing, I think that this
traditional Amerindian attitude may well have been the *result* of them
causing the earlier extinctions.  In other words, they *learned* from
thier mistakes and established a system that was stable, and did not
overtax the available resources.

|    If they were totally against such activity in historic times, why
|    would they have been any different in pre-historic times?

Because the prehistoric peoples were totally different in numerous ways,
ways that are clearly detectable even through the crude eyes of archaeology.
The Clovis culture would hardly have been recognized an Amerindian culture
to most people today.

|    The North American natives of historic times realized
|    that when the Buffalo died off, so would they--wouldn't they have felt
|    the same about the Mastadon in pre-historic times?

Only if it occurred to them that hunting something to extinction
was *possible*!  Until it happened it could well be the concept simply
didn't occur to them, it didn't to us.

|Only we Old World
|    newcomers were/are stupid enough to commit extinctions of valuable 
|    animals and plants.
|
Bull puckies.   The Maori blew away the Moas in New Zealand without *any*
help from us Europeans.  We hardly have a monopoly on that sort of stupidity.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins