How ancient people caught mammoths. Start in science. Weapons, tools and products of ancient man
"Journey to the Stone Age"
Charity wall newspaper for schoolchildren, parents and teachers “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things.” Issue 90, February 2016.
Wall newspapers of the charitable educational project “Briefly and clearly about the most interesting things” (site site) are intended for schoolchildren, parents and teachers of St. Petersburg. They are delivered free of charge to most educational institutions, as well as to a number of hospitals, orphanages and other institutions in the city. The project's publications do not contain any advertising (only founders' logos), are politically and religiously neutral, written in easy language, and well illustrated. They are intended as informational “inhibition” of students, awakening cognitive activity and aspirations to read. Authors and publishers, without claiming to be academically complete in presenting the material, publish Interesting Facts, illustrations, interviews with famous figures of science and culture and thereby hope to increase the interest of schoolchildren in the educational process. Please send your comments and suggestions to: pangea@mail..
We thank the Education Department of the Kirovsky District Administration of St. Petersburg and everyone who selflessly helps in distributing our wall newspapers. The material in this issue was prepared specifically for our project by the staff of the Kostenki Museum-Reserve (authors: chief Researcher Irina Kotlyarova and senior researcher Marina Pushkareva-Lavrentieva). Our sincere gratitude goes to them.
Dear friends! Our newspaper has more than once accompanied its readers on a “journey to the Stone Age.” In this issue, we traced the path that our ancestors took before becoming like you and me. In the issue, we “disassembled” the misconceptions that have arisen around most interesting topic origin of man. In the issue, we discussed the “real estate” of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. In the episode we studied mammoths and got acquainted with the unique exhibits of the Zoological Museum. This issue of our wall newspaper was prepared by a team of authors from the Kostenki Museum-Reserve - “the pearl of the Paleolithic,” as archaeologists call it. Thanks to the finds made here, in the Don Valley south of Voronezh, our modern idea of the “Stone Age” was largely created.
What is "Paleolithic"?
"Bones in the past and present." Drawing by Inna Elnikova.
Panorama of the Don Valley in Kostenki.
Map of Stone Age sites in Kostenki.
Excavations at the Kostenki 11 site in 1960.
Excavations at the Kostenki 11 site in 2015.
Portrait reconstruction of a person from the Kostenki 2 site. Author M.M. Gerasimov. (donsmaps.com).
A dwelling made from mammoth bones on display at the museum.
Currently, many monuments of that era have been discovered all over the world, but one of the most striking and significant is Kostenki, located in the Voronezh region. Archaeologists have long called this monument the “pearl of the Paleolithic.” Now the Kostenki Museum-Reserve has been created here, which is located on the right bank of the Don River and occupies an area of about 9 hectares. Scientists have been conducting research on this monument since 1879. Since that time, about 60 ancient sites have been discovered here, dating back to a huge chronological period - from 45 to 18 thousand years ago.
The people who lived in Kostenki at that time belonged to the same biological species, as modern ones - Homo sapiens sapiens. During this time, humanity managed to go through a great path from small groups of the first Europeans, who had just begun to explore the new continent, to highly developed societies of “mammoth hunters”.
Findings of that era showed that people not only managed to survive in extreme conditions periglacial zone, but also created an expressive culture: they knew how to build quite complex residential structures, make a variety of stone tools and create amazing artistic images. Thanks to the finds in Kostenki, our modern understanding of the Stone Age was largely created.
A real fragment of that era - the remains of a dwelling made of mammoth bones, inside which stone and bone tools were found - is preserved under the roof of the museum in Kostenki. This piece, preserved through the efforts of archaeologists and museum workers ancient life will help us uncover some of the secrets of the Stone Age.
Nature of the Ice Age
Map of the location of sites from the period of maximum Valdai glaciation.
Low sedge – “mammoth grass”.
"Landscape of the Ice Age in Kostenki." Drawing by N.V. Garoutte.
"Mammoths in the Don Valley." Drawing by I.A. Nakonechny.
Drawing of the Adams mammoth skeleton (Zoological Museum). Found in 1799 in the Lena River delta. The age of the find is 36 thousand years.
Taxidermy sculpture of a mammoth on display at the museum.
"Mammoth Kostik" Drawing by Anya Pevgova.
"Baby Mammoth Styopa" Drawing by Veronica Terekhova.
"Mammoth Hunting" Drawing by Polina Zemtsova.
"Mammoth John" Drawing by Kirill Blagodir.
The time to which the main exhibit of the museum, a dwelling made from mammoth bones, dates back can be called the harshest in the last 50 thousand years. Almost the entire north of Europe was covered by a powerful ice sheet, due to which the geographical map of the continent looked somewhat different than it does now. The total length of the glacier was about 12 thousand kilometers, with 9.5 thousand kilometers falling on the territory of the northern part of the modern Russian Federation. Southern border The glacier passed through the Valdai Hills, because of which this glaciation got its name - Valdai.
The conditions of the periglacial steppes were very different from the modern conditions of the same latitudes. If now the climate of our Earth is characterized by a change of seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter, each of which is characterized by special weather conditions, then 20 thousand years ago, most likely, there were two seasons. The warm season was quite short and cool, and the winter was long and very cold - the temperature could drop to 40-45º below zero. In winter, anticyclones lingered over the Don Valley for a long time, providing clear, cloudless weather. Even in summer, the soil did not thaw much at all, and the soil remained frozen throughout the year. There was little snow, so the animals could get food for themselves without much difficulty.
At that time, on the territory of Kostenki there was a completely different zone of vegetation distribution than now. Then these were meadow steppes, combined with rare birch and pine forests. In the river valleys, well protected from the wind and moistened, currants, cornflower, and impatiens grew. It was in the river valleys that small forests were hidden, protected by the slopes of the riverine hills.
One of the Ice Age plants survived safely until today- This is a low sedge, which is colloquially called “mammoth grass”, since it was a contemporary of this animal. Currently, this unpretentious plant can also be found on the slopes of the Kostenki hills.
The fauna of that time was also very different from the modern one. On the Kostenki hills and in the river valley one could see herds of primitive bison, reindeer, musk oxen, and Pleistocene horses. The permanent inhabitants of these places were also wolves, hares, arctic foxes, polar owls and partridges. One of the notable differences between Ice Age animals and modern ones was their large size. Harsh natural conditions forced animals to acquire thick fur, fat and large skeletons to survive.
The “king” of the animal world of that time was the majestic giant - the mammoth, the largest land mammal ice age. It was in his honor that the entire fauna of that time began to be called “mammoth.”
Mammoths were well adapted to dry, cold climates. These animals were dressed in warm skin, even the trunk was overgrown with hair, and its ears were ten times smaller in area than those of the African elephant. Mammoths grew up to 3.5-4.5 meters in height, and their weight could be 5-7 tons.
The dental apparatus consisted of six teeth: two tusks and four molars. The tusks were the most characteristic external sign these animals, especially males. The weight of the tusk of a large seasoned male averaged 100-150 kilograms and had a length of 3.5-4 meters. The tusks were used by animals to strip twigs and tree bark, and to crack ice to get to water. Molars, located two at a time on the upper and lower jaws, had a grooved surface that helped grind coarse plant food.
Mammoths could eat from 100 to 200 kilograms of plant food per day. In summer, the animals fed mainly on grass (meadow grasses, sedges), and the terminal shoots of shrubs (willow, birch, alder). From constant chewing, the surface of the mammoth's teeth was very worn down, which is why they changed throughout his life. In total, he had six changes of teeth during his life. After the last four teeth fell out, the animal died of old age. Mammoths lived for about 80 years.
These giants disappeared from the face of the Earth forever due to climate change that occurred following the melting of the glacier. The animals began to get bogged down in numerous swamps and overheat under their thick shaggy fur. However, most species mammoth fauna did not die, but gradually adapted to the changed natural conditions, and some of the animals of that time have safely survived to this day.
Life and occupations of Stone Age people
Diagram of a dwelling with five storage pits. Parking lot Kostenki 11.
Ancient hunters. Reconstruction of I.A. Nakonechny.
Flint spear or javelin tip. Age - about 28 thousand years.
"The warmth of the hearth." Reconstruction of the dwelling in the Kostenki 11 parking lot of Nikita Smorodinov.
Working with wood carving. Reconstruction.
Scraping a fox skin with a scraper. Reconstruction.
Decorating leather clothes with bone beads. Reconstruction.
Making clothes. Reconstruction of I.A. Nakonechny.
Animal figures made of marl. Age – 22 thousand years.
Women's figurine with jewelry.
Schematic representation of a mammoth. Age – 22 thousand years.
Panorama of the museum in Anosov Log in the village of Kostenki.
Some archaeologists believe that mammoths could have disappeared due to constant hunting by primitive people. In fact, at the Kostenki sites of that time, a huge number of mammoth bones are found: only to create one ancient house, people used about 600 bones of this animal! Therefore, the people who lived in Kostenki at that time are called “mammoth hunters.” And, indeed, the mammoth was a very attractive prey for the people of that time. After all, a successful hunt for him provided almost everything necessary for life: a mountain of meat, which allowed him to forget about hunting for a long time; bones that were used to build houses; skins for insulating homes; grease for interior lighting; tusks, which were used to make various crafts.
Paleolithic man was tied to herds of mammoths: people followed the animals and were always in close proximity to them. They also learned to defeat this gigantic beast using a round-up hunt. It is believed that mammoths were very timid animals and, hearing the sudden cries of hunters who were deliberately driving them to the edge of a cliff, they took flight and fell into a natural trap. A mammoth that rolled down a steep hillside broke its limbs and sometimes even its backbone, so it was not difficult for hunters to finish off the animal. To hunt mammoths, Stone Age people used spears and darts, the tips of which were made of flint - a stone with sharp cutting edges.
Thanks to the successful hunting of mammoths, people were able to stay in one place for a long time and live relatively sedentary lives. In severe weather conditions It was difficult for people to survive without a warm, comfortable home, so they had to learn how to build them from available materials - mammoth bones, earth, wooden sticks and poles, animal skins.
In Kostenki, archaeologists distinguish five types of residential structures, which differ from each other in shape and size. One of them is preserved in the museum building. It is a round house with a diameter of 9 meters with a foundation-base 60 centimeters high, made of mammoth bones and soil holding them together. At an equal distance from each other along the entire perimeter of the wall-base, 16 mammoth skulls were dug in, in order to then secure poles in them, forming both the wall of the house and at the same time its roof. Mammoth skin was not suitable for covering a home, as it was too heavy, so our ancestors chose lighter skins - for example, reindeer.
Inside the house there was a fireplace, around which once in the Stone Age the whole family gathered for meals and ordinary family conversations. They slept right there, not far from the fireplace, on warm animal skins spread on the floor. Apparently, the house also housed a workshop for the manufacture of stone tools - over 900 fragments of small flakes and flint flakes were found on one square meter of the dwelling. The list of tools of that time is very small: these are incisors, scrapers, points, piercings, knives, tips, needles. But with their help, people performed all the necessary operations: sewed clothes, cut meat, cut bone and tusk, and hunted animals.
Around the ancient house, archaeologists discovered 5 storage pits that were filled with mammoth bones. Considering the harsh climate and annual frozen ground, scientists concluded that these pits were used as refrigerators for storing food supplies. Currently, some peoples of the Far North are constructing exactly the same storage pits.
During the Ice Age, people worked tirelessly. Men hunted, brought prey home, and defended their clan. Women in the Stone Age played important role- they were in charge of the household: they guarded the fireplace in the house, prepared food, and sewed clothes from animal skins. In order to simply survive in the extreme conditions of the periglacial zone, people had to constantly work.
However, the finds of that era showed that people not only knew how to build quite complex dwellings and make a variety of stone tools, but also create amazing artistic images. A real work of art and one of the most striking finds are animal figurines made by an ancient master from dense limestone - marl. They all depict a herd of mammoths. Moreover, in this herd one can distinguish large and medium-sized individuals, as well as a small mammoth calf. What were these figurines used for? There are several answers to this question. One possibility suggests that it could have been some kind of forgotten game like modern checkers. Another is that these were primitive abacus for counting the number of mammoths. And finally, these could just be children's toys.
Symbol female beauty, motherhood and continuation of life were the so-called “Upper Paleolithic Venus”. In Kostenki, archaeologists found a whole series of small female figurines. All these figures are very similar: a head bowed down, a huge belly and breasts filled with milk, instead of a face, as a rule, a smooth surface. These are ancient symbols of procreation. One of them was wearing a lot of jewelry: a necklace on her chest and a necklace belt above her chest, and small bracelets on her elbows and wrists. All these are ancient amulets that are designed to “protect” their owner from many problems.
Another mysterious piece of Ice Age art is a drawing done by an ancient artist on slate. This image was also found by archaeologists in Kostenki. Having carefully examined the drawing, you can easily guess the characteristic silhouette of a mammoth: high withers, strongly drooping butt, small ears... But the ladder standing next to the animal makes you wonder: were mammoths really domesticated? Or does this drawing reproduce the moment of cutting up the carcass of a defeated animal?
Despite the many years of painstaking work of archaeological scientists trying to open the veil over the secrets of the Ice Age, much remains unclear. Maybe you, dear friend, will be the one who can make an incredible discovery, take part in archaeological excavations and make a unique find. In the meantime, we invite you to the Kostenki Museum-Reserve so that you can see with your own eyes an ancient house made of mammoth bones and learn in more detail about the Stone Age era.
Kostenki is one of the oldest known settlements of modern man in Europe.
Chief researcher Irina Kotlyarova and senior researcher Marina Pushkareva-Lavrentieva. Museum-reserve "Kostenki".
We are waiting for your feedback, our dear readers! And thank you for being with us.
Where did mammoths come from? What kind of life did you lead? Why did they die out? The scientific community has been struggling with these mysteries for several centuries. And each new study refutes the previous one.
Yakut treasures
It all started with the Amsterdam burgomaster Witsen, when in 1692 he first described an intact mammoth carcass found in Yakutia. He didn't even know what he would give new life extinct animal species. Modern scientists increasingly call Yakutia the homeland of mammoths. Maybe it's not historical homeland, but at least the place with the highest concentration of mammoth population in the past.
Behind last years This is where the largest number of animal remains were found (according to statistics, about 80%), including well-preserved ones. I was especially struck by scientific world the latest discovery is a 60-year-old female mammoth. But its uniqueness lies not so much in the preservation of the tissues, but in the liquid blood contained in them. This find could give scientists new knowledge about the genetic and molecular composition of primitive animals.
Mammoths began to die out due to warming
To this version in Lately More and more scientists are inclined. Dr. Dale Guthrie from the University of Alaska, who did radiocarbon dating of the remains of animals and people who lived more than 10 thousand years ago, agrees with her. According to Guthrie climate change transformed a dry and cold area into a more humid and warm one, which in turn led to a modification of vegetation - the mammoths simply did not have time to adapt to this.
Other scientific evidence confirms the decline of tundra forests, the main habitat of mammoths. Like reindeer mammoths, depending on the time of year, wandered in search of their usual food - in the summer they moved to the north, and in the winter to southern regions. And then one day they were faced with a lack of tundra vegetation.
In 1900, on the banks of the Berezovka River, a mammoth carcass, virtually untouched by time and predators, was discovered. Later, other similar remains were found. Some details, including unchewed grass, suggested that the animals died suddenly. The version of murder was dropped immediately - there were no signs of damage. Scientists puzzled over this mystery for a long time and finally came to an unexpected conclusion - the animals died after falling into the melted wormwood. Over time, researchers were able to discover more and more animals that ended up in the old riverbeds. The rise in temperature played a cruel joke on them.
Here is another fact in favor of the version of the extinction of animals due to global warming. Researchers have found that during the process of climate change, mammoths also changed their size. During the ice ages (Zyryansk and Sartan times) they became larger, and during periods of global warming (Kazantsev and Kargin times) they became smaller. It follows from this that cold was more preferable to mammoths than warmth.
People didn't hunt mammoths
According to one hypothesis, the mammoths were exterminated by hunters, at least, British naturalist Alfred Wallace was inclined to believe this version. Indeed, in parking areas ancient man Many items made from mammoth skin and tusks are found. We also know about people hunting mammoths from school textbooks. However, modern researchers claim that man did not hunt mammoths, but only finished off sick and weak animals. The fact is that with warming, the groundwater that rose to the top washed out the minerals from the soil that were part of the plant food of the mammoths. The fragility of the bones, which appeared as a result of a poor diet, made the giants vulnerable to humans.
A.V. Bogdanov in his book “Secrets of the Lost Civilization” convincingly proves the impossibility of people hunting mammoths. A modern elephant has a skin of about 7 centimeters, and a mammoth, due to a layer of subcutaneous fat, had it even thicker. “Try yourself with a stick and a stone to pierce the skin, which does not burst even from the tusks of five-ton males,” says the writer.
But then Bogdanov is even more convincing. Among the reasons, he names the very tough and stringy mammoth meat, which was practically impossible to eat, as well as unbearable even for large group people actions necessary for a successful hunt. To catch even a medium-sized specimen, you need to dig a hole of at least 7 cubic meters, which is impossible to do with primitive tools. It is even more difficult to drive a mammoth into a hole. These are herd animals, and when trying to take even a baby from the herd, hunters risked being trampled by multi-ton carcasses.
Contemporaries of the Egyptian pyramids
Until recently, it was believed that mammoths disappeared from the face of the earth 10,000 years ago. But at the end of the 20th century, the remains found on Wrangel Island significantly corrected the dating. Based on the data obtained, scientists have determined that these individuals died approximately 3,700 years ago. “Mammoths inhabited this island when the Egyptian pyramids already stood and the Mycenaean civilization flourished,” states Frederik Paulsen. The Wrangel Island mammoths lived when most of these animals on the planet had long since disappeared. What made them move to the island? This remains a mystery for now.
Holy tooth
In the Middle Ages, people who unearthed the bones of mammoths had no idea who they belonged to and often mistook them for the remains of cynocephali who lived in legendary times - huge creatures with a dog's head and human body. For example, in Valencia, a mammoth molar tooth was a sacred relic, which according to legend belonged to the “dog-headed” Christopher, a holy martyr revered by the Catholic and Orthodox Church. It was recorded that during processions back in 1789, canons also carried a mammoth femur along with a tooth, passing it off as a fragment of the saint’s hand.
Relatives
Mammoths are close relatives of elephants. This is what they say scientific name Elefas primigenius (translated from Latin as “first-born elephant”). According to one version, the elephant is the result of the evolution of a mammoth, which adapted to a warmer climate. Perhaps this is not so far from reality, because mammoths of late times corresponded in their parameters to the Asian elephant.
But German scientists compared the DNA of an elephant and a mammoth, and came to a paradoxical conclusion: the mammoth and the Indian elephant are two branches that descended from the African elephant about 6 million years ago. Indeed, recent studies have shown that the ancestor of the African elephant lived on earth more than 7 million years ago, and therefore this version does not seem fantastic.
"Resurrect" the giant!
Scientists are already quite for a long time do not give up attempts to “resurrect” the mammoth. So far to no avail. The main obstacle to the successful cloning of an extinct animal, according to Semyon Grigoriev (head of the P. A. Lazarev Mammoth Museum), is the lack of source material of adequate quality. But, nevertheless, he is convinced of the good prospects of this endeavor. He places his main hopes on a recently extracted female mammoth with preserved liquid blood.
While Russian scientists are trying to recreate the DNA of an ancient animal, Japanese experts have abandoned ambitious plans to populate the Russian Far East mammoths due to the futility of the idea of their “resurrection”. Time will tell who was right.
Teenagers who have read books about the life of primitive people are sure that there are no secrets in this hunt. It's simple. Bristling with spears, the savages surround the huge mammoth and deal with it. Until recently, many archaeologists were convinced of this. However, new discoveries, as well as analysis of previous findings, force us to rethink the usual truths. Thus, archaeologists from the Institute of Primitive and early history at the University of Cologne, they studied 46 sites and hunting sites of Neanderthals in Germany, and examined thousands of animal bones found here. Their conclusion is clear. Ancient hunters were very prudent people. They weighed all the consequences of their actions, and therefore were in no hurry to rush at the huge beast. They deliberately targeted prey certain type, and attacked individuals weighing less than a ton. The list of their trophies includes wild horses, deer, and steppe bison. At least, this was the case 40–60 thousand years ago (this is the age of the studied finds). But it was not only the choice of victim that was important. Primitive people did not wander aimlessly through forests and valleys in the hope that they would get lucky. No, hunting became for them something like a military operation that had to be carefully prepared. It was necessary, for example, to find a place in the forest or steppe where it would be possible to strike the enemy with the least losses. The steep banks of the rivers were a real find for the “Lovitva commanders.” Here the ground suddenly disappeared from under the feet of the intended victim. The invisible spirits of the rivers seemed to be ready to help the people who came here in everything. It was possible to hide near a watering hole and, jumping out from an ambush, finish off the unwary animals. Or wait near the ford. Here, stretched out in a chain, the animals, one after another, carefully probing the bottom, move to the other side. They move slowly, cautiously. At these moments they are very vulnerable, which both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals knew well when they collected their bloody catch. The cunning and prudence of the ancient hunters is easily explained by their weakness. Their opponents were animals that sometimes weighed ten times more than they did. And they had to fight in close combat, staying close to the beast, enraged with pain and fear. After all, before the invention of the onion to primitive man it was necessary to get close to the prey. The spears struck from about fifteen meters away, no further. They used a pike to beat the beast from about three meters away. So, if an operation “Ford” or “Waterhole” was planned, the fighters had to hide somewhere behind the bushes, close to the water, in order to reduce the distance separating them from the beast to the limit with one jump. Composure and precision meant life here. Haste and failure are death. To rush, as if in a bayonet attack, with a sharpened stick at an adult mammoth is like death. But people hunted in order to survive. The myth about the brave men who, with a spear in their hand, blocked the path of ancient elephants, was born immediately after the Second World War. It did not arise out of nowhere. In the spring of 1948, in the town of Lehringen, in Lower Saxony, during construction work, the skeleton of a forest elephant that died 90 thousand years ago was discovered. A spear lay between the animal’s ribs, said amateur archaeologist Alexander Rosenstock, who was the first to examine the find. This spear, which broke into eleven pieces, has since been considered the main argument of those who depicted the insane courage of primitive people. But did that memorable hunt take place? A recent study has refuted the obvious findings. In that distant era, at the place where the remains of the elephant were discovered, there was the edge of a lake. It was connected by channels with other surrounding lakes. The current rolled objects that fell into the water, for example the same spear, transferring them from one place to another. It looks like they weren't even going to hunt with this spear. Judging by the blunt end, they dug the ground on the shore, and then dropped it into the water, and the current carried it into the lake, where it rested on the carcass of an animal that blocked its path. If there was a hunt that day, there was nothing heroic about it. An old elephant was dying on the shore of the lake. His legs gave way and his body sank to the ground. A young man resolutely emerged from the crowd of people watching from afar the last convulsions of the beast. I took the spear. Got closer. I looked around. Hit. Nothing dangerous. The elephant didn't even move. With all his strength he drove a spear into him. He waved to the others. You can cut up your prey. This is also a plausible scenario. What about the other finds? Torralba in Spain, Gröbern and Neumark Nord in Germany - skeletons of mammoths killed by people were also found here. However, the first impression was again deceptive. Having re-examined the animal bones, archaeologists discovered only characteristic traces of their processing stone tools- obviously, traces of cutting up carcasses, but this in no way proves that primitive people personally killed this prey. After all, the thickness of the skin of an adult mammoth, which reached approximately 4 meters in height, ranged from 2.5 to 4 centimeters. A primitive wooden spear could, at best, inflict a lacerated wound on an animal, but not kill it - especially since the “right of the next blow” remained with the enraged elephant. And was the game worth the candle? In fact, the mammoth was not such a profitable prey. Most of his carcass would simply go rotten. “Neanderthals were smart people. They wanted to get the maximum amount of meat with a minimum risk for themselves,” archaeologists unanimously note. Neanderthals lived in small groups of 5–7 people. In the warm season, such a tribe needed half a month to eat 400 kilograms of meat. If the carcass weighed more, the rest would have to be thrown away. Well, what about anatomically? modern man, settled in Europe 40 thousand years ago? It is not for nothing that he is a “reasonable being” by definition. Maybe he knew the secrets of hunting mammoths? Archaeologists from the University of Tübingen examined the bones of mammoths found in caves near Ulm, where the sites of the people of the Gravette culture were located (by the time it arose, the Neanderthals had already become extinct). Analysis of the findings gave an unambiguous result. In all cases, carcasses of baby mammoths aged from two weeks to two months were cut up. Employees of the Paris Museum of Natural History explored another site of people of the Gravette culture, located in the town of Milovic in the Czech Republic. The remains of 21 mammoths were discovered here. In seventeen cases these are cubs, and in another four they are young animals. The Miloviche site was located on the slope of a small valley, the bottom of which was made of loess. In the spring, when baby mammoths were born, the frozen ground thawed, and the loess turned into a mess in which the young mammoths got stuck. Their relatives could not help them. The hunters waited for the herd to leave and then finished off the prey. Perhaps people deliberately drove mammoths into this “swamp”, frightening them with torches. But what about the brave men? Was there really no one who, with a spear at the ready, desperately rushed at the mammoth, not sparing his belly? There must have been some brave souls too. Only heroes - they are heroes to die young, for example, under the feet of an angry elephant. We, in all likelihood, are the descendants of those prudent hunters who could wait in ambush for days until a lone mammoth calf died in the trap where it fell. But we, their descendants, are alive, and what remains of the heroes is usually only a memory.
What if, as in science fiction films, mutants take over the planet? Many people will die, but you won't, you will know how to hunt dinosaurs!
...mutants or dinosaurs will fill the planet again!
According to the latest, very scientific information, the last living mammoths on planet Earth became extinct approximately 6-10 thousand years ago. But elephants, hippos, and rhinoceroses are still found. In the middle (climatic) zone, smaller animals still live: elk, bear, wild boar, deer, but a real survival specialist simply must know, just in case, how to hunt any animal of any size, including elephants and hippos.
Let's return to mammoths. How do you think ancient people hunted mammoths for meat? In movie, history books and in the paintings in museums there are many visual answers to this question. The whole tribe first drove the poor animal into a pit, and then threw stones at the mammoth in the pit to death.
Catching large ungulates using trapping pits is still practiced in some places, but I personally have not heard of hunters slaughtering the caught animal in a pit with stones. Do you know why? Because giant hematomas form at the impact sites. In other words, bruises. Or more precisely, an unappetizing, jelly-like mass of black-blue-violet color. It is unlikely that ancient hunters deliberately spoiled the meat of hunted animals in this way. In order to kill a mammoth in a pit, it was enough to poke it in the neck with a spear and wait for the mammoth to die from loss of blood.
It is also known that ancient people covered the floors of their homes with mammoth skin. But in the cramped pit it was impossible to remove the skin from the mammoth. Yes, and a hole in permafrost Digging is quite difficult. During the Ice Age, in the habitats of mammoths, the ground was frozen for sure. It turns out that there were no holes either. How were mammoths killed? Yes, just like modern elephants or moose with the help of primitive weapons. For example, African pygmies They hunt with their toy weapons, hit them in the stomach with a spear, and after waiting two or three hours for the elephant’s peritoneum to become inflamed, they came up and finished off the animal with a spear in the neck. The main thing in such a hunt was not to chase a wounded animal in vain. The beast walked away and, not noticing the pursuit behind it, stopped and lay down, feeling the pain from the wound. Having rested, the animal could no longer get up and it was not difficult to find it by following its tracks.
As you can see, killing any large animal for meat does not require the presence of all the warriors of the tribe, including their angry wives and starving children. One experienced hunter was quite enough.
The same applies to the use of elephant traps. They don't dig holes for elephants. Trap holes are dug for smaller animals, where tiny baby elephants can actually end up. Other traps are used for adult elephants (and hippos). They hang a spear coated with a thick layer of clay over the elephant path. So that the total weight of the spear with a lump of clay would be over a hundred kilograms. Such a modernized spear can be hung by two adult men on a tree branch and, using a simple trigger device, secure the spear above the path. The pygmies spread clay on the elephant spear already on the tree. An elephant (hippopotamus, antelope, zebra...) passing under a tree touched the guard and the spear falling down pierced the elephant (or hippopotamus) right through. Which led to the rapid death of the animal.
Similar trap spears were used almost all over the world. In Vietnam, similar traps, lumps of clay with many bamboo stakes, were used to successfully “hunt” even American intervention soldiers. Additionally, traps like these are much simpler than piling up logs in bear traps. By the way, maw-type traps are also known all over the world. For example, in Africa, even hippopotamuses were caught with mouth-type traps. Hippos outside the water are quite shy and cautious, and the fear of human traps was apparently passed on to them (the hippos) at the genetic level. Locals in order to scare away hippos, they placed on their path a kind of trap made of a pumpkin or a small stump of a tree, resting one end (of the pumpkin) on a stick. This layout was quite enough for hippos to stop using this path for a long time.
On Siberian bears and elk, if the need is quite urgent, you can put a powerful crossbow (crossbow) with a spear instead of an arrow. Hunters used crossbows (crossbows) with bows that could be pulled by two or three adult men at once until the mid-twentieth century. Then the crossbow bow began to be replaced firearms or loops of steel cable.
You yourself have already guessed that all the traps described above are considered poaching and are prohibited for use everywhere. Knowing and applying are not the same thing. But you need to know just in case.
What do you say: “A tyrannosaurus appeared from somewhere and needs to be killed off? I hope you didn't scare him? Then we’ll get together now and do as you ask.”
Mammoths and bipeds
Winter. For a long time bygone times glaciations in the highlands of North-East Yakutia. The flat, sometimes slightly hilly plain is covered with white snow. The dazzlingly bright rays of the sun play with multi-colored sparkles on this snowy white silence. In the weak wind, the yellow heads of rare cereals, protruding from under the snow, quietly sway. An arched shape is visible in the distance long lake- old women. A herd of mammoths calmly grazes on its bend. Each of them resembles in size a huge cart or haystack, placed on four thick logs. But among them there are also very playful, active young animals of much smaller size. Not inferior in dimensions to modern ones big bulls, the “kids” start funny offensive-retreat games and run around their majestic relatives.
It's quiet and peaceful around. The giants of these expanses, deftly wielding their huge tusks, rake away the snow, and with their powerful jaws chew the withered grass and coarse shrubby vegetation extracted from under the snow.
But the silence on the snowy plain and the undisturbed peace of the mighty mammoths turned out to be deceptive. Patiently and quietly behind them 
Wise and treacherous two-legged creatures - people - closely watched. Hunters dressed in animal skins suddenly jumped out from behind the hills with deafening screams. The leader of the mammoths let out an alarming roar and led his herd away from the people - to the lake. The hunters' cunning trick worked: the animals ran towards their certain death. As soon as they began to cross the lake covered with ice and snow, terrible cracks appeared under their feet. The maddened animals instinctively gathered into a dense crowd. The half-meter ice could not withstand the weight of the animals accumulated in one place, and the entire herd of mammoths ended up in deep icy water. The mighty animals, in mortal horror, began to crush each other, floundering in the water, turning over multi-ton blocks of ice like light toys. Weak animals found themselves under water, and the strong ones frantically beat the edge of the ice with flexible trunks and strong tusks. But soon their strength ran out. An entire herd of mammoths perished and became the prey of savvy Stone Age hunters. The latter began to perform an unimaginably energetic ritual dance of good luck...
According to competent experts, the life of Stone Age tribes largely depended on the production of large animals. By hunting only small game they could not provide all the needs of their existence. People of the Stone Age, without having tools for hunting large animals, still knew the “Achilles heel” of such gregarious and heavy animals as mammoths. They were excellent at hunting mammoths and their companions (woolly rhinoceroses, bison, wild horses) driving through the ice.
Modern people are surprised by the huge accumulations of bones - cemeteries of mammoths of different ages. Scientists put forward different versions of the solution to this mystery. Very valuable finds often appear on the table of specialists - scraps of red, dark gray or black wool, bones with dried tendons. Occasionally, scientists get entire skeletons and remains of the corpses of mammoths, rhinoceroses, fossil bison and horses. Researchers study stone or bone arrowheads and spears of Stone Age hunters, argue about hunting methods and techniques, and are amazed at the ability of primitive people to survive in extreme glacial conditions.
Starting from the Stone Age, humanity passed through the Bronze and Iron Ages.
In the history of mankind Stone Age is estimated at approximately two million years or a little more. Then people coexisted first with ancient elephants, then with mammoths and other giants who lived during the Quaternary glaciation.
According to research by P. Wood, L. Vachek et al. (1972), 400-500 thousand years ago in the European part of the world people hunted ancient elephants. On the territory of Yakutia (including the primitive people of Diring-Yuryakh), hunting tribes appeared about 35 thousand years ago. Before the complete disappearance of mammoths from the face of the earth, they at least hunted them for at least 250 centuries. IN glacial period in search of prey, these tribes spread to North America.
Did people kill mammoths?
Scientists have long ago agreed by default that modern man is the main enemy of all life on Earth. As it turned out, this is hereditary for him. According to American archaeologist Todd Sorovil, it was people who made a decisive contribution to the disappearance of mammoths from our planet.
Until now, it was believed that ancient mammals became extinct as a result sudden change climate that occurred from 50 to 100 thousand years ago. Then two thirds of the animals died. Meanwhile, according to Sorovil, natural disasters played only a minor role in this. The scientist made his shocking conclusions based on a study of 41 areas in which the bones of elephant ancestors were found. Having compared these places, he discovered an interesting pattern: mammoths died out much faster where there were sites of ancient people nearby. In those areas where people did not have time to settle, the natural death of mammoths occurred much later.
Despite the absence in those time immemorial greenhouse effect and ozone holes, people, it turns out, coped well and without costs National economy. Although there was no global fur market then, mammoth skins were in great demand - apparently, this was the main attire of our prehistoric ancestors. And mammoth meat was perhaps the main delicacy. Moreover, they had to get it all on their own - active hunting ultimately led to the complete destruction of the “hairy elephants.”
http://www.utro.ru/articles/2005/04/12/427979.shtml
American scientists have dealt a crushing defeat to scientific opponents studying the reasons for the disappearance of mammoths from the face of the Earth, pointing out the absurdity of the assumption that they fell victim to the gastronomic intemperance of our ancestors. In recent years, the sad fact of the discovery of an extremely small number of complete skeletons of these fossil animals has been explained by the fact that most of them fell under the primitive carving knife. Other hypotheses, such as: ecological catastrophy or a deadly epidemic - were rejected as untenable.
But the Americans rehabilitated their ancestors. At an international conference in Hot Springs, a researcher with the strikingly appropriate surname Firestone said that it was not animal disease or human gluttony that killed the mammoths. They ceased to exist as a result of the activity of a supernova, which brought down a hail of radioactive meteorites on the Earth.
Until now, speaking about the disappearance of mammoths, scientists agreed on one thing - they completely died out 11-13 thousand years ago; everything else was just speculation. Richard Firestone voiced his. About 41 thousand years ago, a supernova appeared at a distance of 250 light years from Earth. First, cosmic radiation reached our planet, followed by a stream of ice particles, which began to bombard the mammoth habitats.
The Americans even found traces of this radiation, for which they had to go to Iceland and delve into marine sediments. Having dug to the right layers, they discovered an unusually high concentration of C-14 carbon, which was explained by the influence of radiation from that same ill-fated supernova. And in the layers corresponding to the period of the untimely death of mammoths, radioactive pieces of ice were discovered.
It should be noted that Mr. Firestone was so kind that he did not completely destroy all other hypotheses about the causes of the death of mammoths. With full confidence, he stated that only the inhabitants of North America fell from cosmic influence. However geographical position Iceland, namely: its equidistance from the North American continent and Eurasia, still leaves no reason to blame excessively voracious primitive people for the death of mammoths.