http://johnfrederickwalker.com/2009/11/23/did-humans-kill-off-the-mammoth/ Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:19:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://johnfrederickwalker.com/2009/11/23/did-humans-kill-off-the-mammoth/#comment-131 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:19:51 +0000 http://johnfrederickwalker.com/?p=279#comment-131 December 31, 2011 This is a very late response since I just stumbled across this blog, but I’ll comment anyway in case anyone is still monitoring it. How often did mammoths reproduce? What if the humans entering North America specialized in killing the very young of the mega-fauna, using their wolves/dogs to bring the young to bay and harass the mothers trying to protect their babies while men slipped in and drove their spears into the much easier killed new born calves? Any mother charging the men would have been swarmed upon by the canid packs, and even if they only amounted to ankle-biters they could have distracted a mother and caused her to turn away from her pursuit of the real killers (Corgis herd 2000 lb cattle).
How long would it have taken mammoths to go extinct if their reproduction was brought below maintenance levels in this manner?
DAC

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