Luckily, the brave unsung paleoindians repelled the attack, saving mankind.
For now.
Your title made me think of this golden oldie:
(they look as if they MIGHT have been able to dig those tunnels, with those claws)
Or maybe this, although those munchkins don’t look up to the task, and unlikely to make tunnels that big:
This guy (and especially his minions) seem a better bet:
…and he seems to be the inspiration for this dude:
Now he is a Good Guy.
That’s a waste! Without his Subterranean Empire and his Minions of All Sizes he’s just a big-nosed guy in 3D glasses with a Beatles haircut.
I guess that is why he is now a Good Guy.
But never fear, Spiderman will screw this up, too.
He was almost big-nosed, 3D-glasse’d, mop-topped Uncle [del]Hans Moleman[/del] Mole Man to Peter Parker.
Very cool science stuff. I wonder if any humans saw the Giant Ground Sloths, and if so, I wonder if any surviving myths are related to it.
Aunt May has some strange allergy to caves, so things didn’t work out.
I am of the (unproven and not uncontested) opinion that humans were a primary cause of the Holocene megafaunal extinctions in the New World, so I suspect that not only did humans see them, but that humans with pointy sticks are the last thing many giant ground sloths saw.
I am very, very, very skeptical of the idea that any oral traditions could last 12,000 years or more. Over that period of time, there would be few if any words even recognizable from the original language(s) spoken by those that encountered the ground sloths and glyptodonts and mammoths and such. Look at what proto-Indo-European may have been like only 6,000 years ago. Imagine a game of telephone whispered across 90-ish generations and several languages–I don’t think it too plausible for any signal to be left in the noise, and the stories to disappear entirely.
Not 12,000 years ago, I grant you, but Richard’s “Will no one rid me of this troublesome Priest?” weren’t spoken in English.
Um, yeah? It was also written down. How accurate do you think the quote would be if it were passed along orally and only orally for a few hundred years? Or if it would still be remembered at all?
Well, hell.
It’s pretty much certain that humans interacted with ground sloths. but almost no chance of surviving myths, since even the remnant island species went extinct 4000 years ago. The mainland species were all lost more than 10,000 years ago.
Clan of the Cave Sloth?
“Interacted”? “Exterminated” would be more accurate.
I’m quite the mole man, myself.
… I did not speak out because I was not South American
When the molemen invaded Central America…
I won’t speak of it when they invade Levy, because it is the cesspool of the world, and the armpit of the South.
It sure is! I love reading about stuff like this. Fascinating!