41–50 of 64 posts
Do people seriously believe ancient humans hunted mammoths? I thought it's just a popular myth (some people even believe they rode dinosaurs, you know). Weren't there other animals handier to hunt?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the generally this sort of comparison is based on the brain:body size ratio.
I could be mistaken, but IIRC, Neanderthals had larger brains than homo sapiens sapiens even when taking body mass in to account.
One speculative theory is that Neanderthals, with apparently better night vision and sense of smell (based on size of ocular orbits & nasal passages), had larger optic & olfactory centers in their brains. This seems a tenuous argument, however.
If brain size is directly proportional to number of neurons and neural links, then Neanderthal brains (and the larger brains of certain other mammals) would be more complex than ours, have more capacity, more memory, or other capabilities.
It's not clear why a mammoth or other elephant-like creature would have such large brain (the African elephant's brain is about 3 times as large as a human's). Perhaps there's some redundancy in the tissue, or legacy regions that are not used today.
Elephants are remarkably intelligent, and one can assume similarly the mammoths. Elephants have a sophisticated culture and have been observed to do a dance to welcome another elephant returned from a trip. They do have excellent memory; the saying "elephants never forget" seems to be true. They remember watering holes all over the savannah including ones that no longer exist on the surface, and they know to dig down and find the subterranean water in the exact spot that they hadn't been to for years. Social interaction is also important for brain development. So who knows? Maybe there's more to pachyderm intelligence than we are currently aware.
> Hunters may have used torches to scare the mammals into the area with the traps, which are about 6ft (1.70m) deep and 25 yards in diameter, but one of the skulls found also had marks of a spear wound on the front. I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end,…
>I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end, hunting and killing masses of these mighty beasts. Humans are the only animal with the ability to communicate complex abstract future plans (e.g. "today we all shore up the pit, tomorrow you guys wait over there and…
> Hunters may have used torches to scare the mammals into the area with the traps, which are about 6ft (1.70m) deep and 25 yards in diameter, but one of the skulls found also had marks of a spear wound on the front. I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end,…
> Hunters may have used torches to scare the mammals into the area with the traps, which are about 6ft (1.70m) deep and 25 yards in diameter, but one of the skulls found also had marks of a spear wound on the front. I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end,…
Don't chimpanzees etc. also coordinate hunting/raiding parties? I also recall a segment from BBC's Blue Planet, where an octopus and another fish whose name I cannot recall (grouper?), two entirely different species, communicate with each other via the color of their skin to surround and trap prey. > Our most amazing ancestors were not kings and emperors, but rather these pre-historic hunters and gatherers who carved…
One on my favorite examples is that of the orcas in Eden Australia. The orcas would shepard baleen whales to whaling vessels in the bay, then help the whalers kill them in exchange for the tongue and lips of the prey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou...
Confused. What evidence was found, to indicate these mammoths didn't just stumble into the pit? Was the pit man-made? Tool marks on the mammoth bones? Evidence of hunting implements? One spear mark is pretty slim evidence, but that's all they mentioned.
I wonder what the average temperature of Mexico was during that time...
> Hunters may have used torches to scare the mammals into the area with the traps, which are about 6ft (1.70m) deep and 25 yards in diameter, but one of the skulls found also had marks of a spear wound on the front. I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end,…
Don't chimpanzees etc. also coordinate hunting/raiding parties? I also recall a segment from BBC's Blue Planet, where an octopus and another fish whose name I cannot recall (grouper?), two entirely different species, communicate with each other via the color of their skin to surround and trap prey. > Our most amazing ancestors were not kings and emperors, but rather these pre-historic hunters and gatherers who carved…
We are resourceful, that's for sure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end, hunting and killing masses of these mighty beasts. Humans are the only animal with the ability to communicate complex abstract future plans (e.g. "today we all shore up the pit, tomorrow you guys wait over there and…
How much of an advantage is our cooling system in colder climates?
0: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-rus...
> Hunters may have used torches to scare the mammals into the area with the traps, which are about 6ft (1.70m) deep and 25 yards in diameter, but one of the skulls found also had marks of a spear wound on the front. I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end,…
>I find humans amazing. An adult mammoth is something even the more largest predators would not attempt to hunt. And yet, here is a band of puny 2 legged mammals armed with sticks with a flint at the end, hunting and killing masses of these mighty beasts. Humans are the only animal with the ability to communicate complex abstract future plans (e.g. "today we all shore up the pit, tomorrow you guys wait over there and…
So even what you are taking for granted as inate in human language planning was also a social 'technology' that humans enhanced/improved on as a community.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could be mistaken, but IIRC, Neanderthals had larger brains than homo sapiens sapiens even when taking body mass in to account.
Neanderthals had larger brain cases which suggests they had larger brains, though it's not understood why their brains would be larger -- what evolutionary advantage did it confer? Why wouldn't Homo Sapiens have a similar volume of brain case? One speculative theory is that Neanderthals, with apparently better night vision and sense of smell (based on size of ocular orbits & nasal passages), had larger optic & olfact…
This, at least, I can answer, using numbers from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4053853/ . The elephant brain is massive, but 97%+ of those neurons are in the cerebellum, and is likely related to their somewhat unique use of a trunk. And while their cerebral cortex is twice as massive as a humans', it only contains one-third the neurons.