# How Did People Hunt Mammoth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110 "2013-12-11T22:00:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/61 "2013-12-14T21:19:51Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > After they acquired the horse, which happened before direct contact with Europeans, How did that happen? Were there herds of wild horses sired by horses that escaped from Europeans? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/62 "2013-12-14T21:22:39Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > How did that happen? > Were there herds of wild horses sired by horses that escaped from Europeans? Yep. The Spanish were in Central America and Mexico about 100 years prior to the French and English in North America. Cortez in Mexico: 1518. Pilgrims at Plymouth: 1620. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/63 "2013-12-14T21:30:15Z")
Horses got from Mexico to the Dakotas in 100 years? :dubious: Hmm, they sure as hell couldn’t get across the Mississippi river, come to think of it. There were French running about on the Western side in Louisiana, for example. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/64 "2013-12-14T21:33:11Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Horses got from Mexico to the Dakotas in 100 years? :dubious: The Pilgrims didn’t settle in the Dakotas. 😉 But the Spanish also settled in the Southwest of what is not he US. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/65 "2013-12-14T21:33:25Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > How did that happen? > Were there herds of wild horses sired by horses that escaped from Europeans? Some horses escaped or were stolen from the Spanish by Indians. Feral herds soon became established. Indian tribes traded horses among themselves, or maybe more commonly stole them from their neighbors. Such a useful animal spread very rapidly. From [here](http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/ma05/indepth/) > [@](#): > > The first Spanish horses arrived in the Carribbean in the early 1500s.\* In 1519, Conquistadors re-introduced horses to North America. Fifteen horses were brought by the Cortez expedition and were imported by Spanish homesteaders to Mexico and New Mexico. The re-introduced species made their way north through the western U.S. west of the Rocky Mountains to the coast, following the expansion of the Mexican/Spanish. Although greatly valued by their owners, they occasionally escaped, fueling Navajo raiders as early as 1606. Trading and warring among Natives resulted in a rapid spread of horses through the continent. > > Within 150 years of the first colonizers, herds of millions of mostly Spanish Andaluz Mustangs — were roaming the plains. \*Actually in 1493, on Columbus’s second voyage. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/66 "2013-12-14T21:40:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > or were stolen from the Spanish by Indians. Stealing from someone doesn’t count as contact? Tell it to the Judge. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/67 "2013-12-14T21:42:32Z")
BTW, I don’t see any problem with horses migrating from Mexico/New Mexico to the Dakotas in 100 years. They evolved in the Americas, and so they would easily re-adapt to that environment. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/68 "2013-12-14T21:53:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Stealing from someone doesn’t count as contact? > Tell it to the Judge. 🙂 The stealing would have been done by Indians further south, so the Plains Indians (like the Lakota) could have acquired horses from wild herds or from trading/stealing from other Indians tribes-- not directly from Europeans. **Colibri** was specifically talking about the Plains Indians. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/69 "2013-12-14T22:04:10Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Stealing from someone doesn’t count as contact? > Tell it to the Judge. 🙂 As John says, the _first_ horses were stolen (or escaped) from the Spanish in Mexico (or perhaps in what is now the US southwest). They were then stolen from or traded by those Indians to others who were not in direct contact with the Spanish. In a fairly short time they had spread to other tribes who were quite distant from the areas which the Spanish or any other Europeans had reached. Many tribes had horses long before they saw their first European. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/70 "2013-12-14T22:04:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The stealing would have been done by Indians further south, so the Plains Indians (like the Lakota) could have acquired horses from wild herds or from trading/stealing from other Indians tribes-- not directly from Europeans. **Colibri** was specifically talking about the Plains Indians. Southern Indian: “I’ll give you thirty ponies for you daughter.” Northern Indian: “WTF is a pony?” Sothern Indian: “I’ll give you ten ponies for your daughter.” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/71 "2013-12-14T22:14:18Z")
sorry for the kludge, but the quote function didn’t work again. > [@](#): > > Kobal2 Quote: > Originally Posted by **aruvqan** [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16929276#post16929276) > Air and sun drying, as well as smoking are a very natural first preservation technique - you dress out something and ride off with a slab of it hanging off your saddle, you end up with a nice sun and wind dried hunk of critter. > > Or \*under \*your saddle. This may well be apocryphal of course, or the victors poo-pooing the enemy, but I clearly recall my childhood’s history classes teaching us how our Hunnic invaders would keep dried meat there between leather and horse, so that the friction and constant slapping would tenderize it over time without the need for human effort. Any truth to this ? > > It makes sense to me, in any event - I never had \*bstirma \*but Bündnerfleisch really does have the consistency of a meat brick. It’s also really, really tasty. For optimum decadence (and teeth breakage) cut it into thin slices, possibly using a jackhammer, then wrap them around a cube or stick of old, bone-hard Parmeggiano. You now have the food of the Gods in your hand AND you’re all set to reach Mongolia on foot, dig until you reach Balrog or code through the whole week without leaving your desk :p. Yes or under the saddle, though I heard of that more for raw unprocessed meat - the friction of the riding seemed to cook it. You should try to get hold of some bstirma, it really is tasty. I will see if I can get hold of some Bündnerfleisch - next summer we are supposed to be in London for the WorldCon and one of my German buddies is supposed to be joining us there, I will ask him if he can bring some along with him. In the US we have a form of dried heavily [salted beef](http://www.foodsubs.com/Photos/chippedbeef.jpg) that has been mostly surplanted by [‘chipped’ beef](http://insignificantyum.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/chippedbeef.jpg) which instead of a solid muscle is chopped and formed salted dried beef. It is effectively the same as the whole muscle dried and salted - it is rinsed several times to remove the salt and then cooked in rahmsosse, and served over noodles or toast. Frequently referred to as ‘shit on a shingle’ it was a common meal when my Dad was in the army in WW2 - he refused to eat it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/72 "2013-12-14T22:54:05Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Northern Indian: “WTF is a pony?” A propos of nothing, but because I’ve been doing some reading on the subject recently, apparently the word for horse in…_a_ Native language (not sure which, I’m trying to dig back the cite but haven’t had much success so far. My Google-fu is weak tonight) can be transliterated as “dog of wonder” or “amazing dog”. The snarky among us might deduce from this that this particular group of Natives were pretty rubbish at cladistics and leave it at that, but I would posit it implies that before they came upon the horse they’d been using dogs as work or pack animals to help with the day to day tasks. Not to pull a plow maybe (did they even have plows ?), however a sleigh or tarp laden with various sundries ? Could be, no ? Which, to bring us back to the OP and the notion that bringing all that meat and bone and grease back to the village would have been a PITA, could suggest a possible method by which paleolithic tribes did it - we do know the first traces of domesticated wolf have been dated to -30k years or so, whereas the Mastodon was hunted to extinction a mere 10-11k back. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/73 "2013-12-15T03:04:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > A propos of nothing, but because I’ve been doing some reading on the subject recently, apparently the word for horse in…_a_ Native language (not sure which, I’m trying to dig back the cite but haven’t had much success so far. My Google-fu is weak tonight) can be transliterated as “dog of wonder” or “amazing dog”. > The snarky among us might deduce from this that this particular group of Natives were pretty rubbish at cladistics and leave it at that, but I would posit it implies that before they came upon the horse they’d been using dogs as work or pack animals to help with the day to day tasks. Not to pull a plow maybe (did they even have plows ?), however a sleigh or tarp laden with various sundries ? Could be, no ? > > Which, to bring us back to the OP and the notion that bringing all that meat and bone and grease back to the village would have been a PITA, could suggest a possible method by which paleolithic tribes did it - we do know the first traces of domesticated wolf have been dated to -30k years or so, whereas the Mastodon was hunted to extinction a mere 10-11k back. It’s a joke. A friend of mine who lives with Indians in Oklahoma says they go to bars, check out women and rate her in the number of ponies. It is certainly a translation error. My wire haired dauschand, however one spells it, would stop and eat the mammoth. Perhaps Indians eating dogs and horses as the need arose would improve her demeanor. 🙂 My point being, if Northern Indian had never seen a horse, Southern Indian could have had all his daughters for one. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/74 "2013-12-15T03:11:57Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > A propos of nothing, but because I’ve been doing some reading on the subject recently, apparently the word for horse in…_a_ Native language (not sure which, I’m trying to dig back the cite but haven’t had much success so far. My Google-fu is weak tonight) can be transliterated as “dog of wonder” or “amazing dog”… Lakota. _Shunka-wakan_. Can be translated loosely as “mystery dog”. Watch _A Man Called Horse_, and you’ll hear this all the time. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/75 "2013-12-15T15:10:39Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The extinction of the megafauna of the Americas took place over a comparatively short period of time, affected a wide variety of animals of different ecologies from mammoths to horse to giant ground sloths to glyptodonts, and took place in every climatic zone, from the Arctic to the temperate zones to the subtropics to tropical rainforests. Tangent: For South America, what major species may have been impacted? Assuming people were part of this, when did S America become infested with humans compared to N America? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/76 "2013-12-15T16:38:11Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Tangent: For South America, what major species may have been impacted? Assuming people were part of this, when did S America become infested with humans compared to N America? One would be the [Megatherium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium). And it appears that S America was settled very rapidly after N America. In fact, one of the oldest know human fossil sites is in South America-- [Monte Verde, Chile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_verde). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/77 "2013-12-15T16:54:08Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Tangent: For South America, what major species may have been impacted? Assuming people were part of this, when did S America become infested with humans compared to N America? As John says, people spread through the isthmus of Panama to South America not long after they reached North America. There are sites in South America, including mastodon kill sites, nearly as old as those in the north. (Actually, because dating is not precise, we don’t have good evidence of the exact time course of the peopling of the Americas.) Megafauna that disappeared from South America around the time of the arrival by humans included many forms indigenous to that continent (some of which had previously migrated to North America, and also disappeared there), including a variety of [ground sloths](http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/helencowie/2005/02/18/evi_megatherium_large.jpg?maxWidth=600) (some the size of an elephant),[toxodonts, glyptodonts, and Macrauchenia (in back with the long neck and trunk).](http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/the-toxodon-glyptodon-charles-r-knight.jpg) There were also animals that had migrated to South America from the north, including several species of mastodonts, horses, sabertooth cats, the American lion, dire wolves, and giant short-faced bears. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/78 "2013-12-15T17:40:39Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace;16931293And it appears that S America was settled very rapidly after N America. In fact, one of the oldest know human fossil sites is in South America-- [Monte Verde, Chile] ([Monte Verde - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_verde)). [/QUOTE] That should have read “one of the oldest known human fossil sites in the Americas”… For years, archeologists thought humans migrated south only after the ice sheets parted enough for there to be an in inland passage leading from the north to the south in North America. An alternative hypothesis is that humans migrated along coastal routes, and therefore were not subject to inland glacial barriers. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/79 "2013-12-16T01:46:44Z")
Interesting stuff - thank you. I would love to see a _Pleistocene Park_. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110/80 "2013-12-16T05:51:46Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > The modern equavalent would be asking how the bushmen of the Kalahari are able to bring down an elephant. . Well, the San used poison arrows to hunt. Not sure if they ever took down elephant though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-people-hunt-mammoth/676110.md?page=3)