Sunday, June 15, 2014

Hunting Mamooths

New archaeological evidence suggest that early humans were successful in hunting the giant extinct animals called mamooths, thanks to domesticated dogs. The evidence shows that the emergence of dwelling sites with large remains of mamooths appeared quickly. This was about 45,000 to 15,000 years ago. Humans and their ancestors had hunted mamooths for much longer before, but the hunts suddenly grew much more successful. There are many aspects of hunting with digs that would explain this. With the help of dogs, the humans got more protein with less effort and could grow in numbers.

I believe in this theory. It definitely makes sense. Everybody knows dogs and humans hunt very well together. Every hunting human makes a better job with the help of good hunting dogs. Thus, we have an early example of how dogs are a great part of human culture.

So does this mean that dogs are in part to blame for the extinction of mamooths? Perhaps the dogs that once were. You cannot blame modern day dogs, nor modern day humans, for the extinction of an animal that occured thousands of years ago. We can, however, learn something from earlier mistakes and work to preserve the animals that live among us now.

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