pleistocene megafauna Archives - Neolithic Architecture

No wonder everyone wanted a woolly mammoth

From 40,000 years ago, as vindicated in numerous caves, the woolly mammoths were one of the most popular subjects of neolithic artists. Its tusks were 15 feet long, and some were as large as 7 tonnes. On top of this, their long, shaggy coats, and famous tusks. Woolly mammoths were able to ward off hungry saber-tooth tigers, human hunters, predators and last tens of thousands of years.
Despite a kill ensuring homo sapiens, and there families survival. Mammoths were capable reproducers, and hunters earning the international acclimation and research we give them today. For humans, hunting one meant years they could eat, make a warm house, create fur pelts and so on. As massive as they were, numerous feet, and many tons—woolly mammoths figured on the lunch menu of early homo sapiens. When humans did have enough courage to hunt one, we converted there bodies for their warm pelts, as well as their tasty, fatty meat and bones for tools and shelter.

Hunting one:
After a lucky neolithic hunting session, some human groups in central and eastern Europe used the conveniently big bones to build themselves huts. The Mezinian culture, found in present-day Ukraine, used mammoth bones arranged geometrically to build the outer walls of their dwellings. In the nearby Danube corridor, there are mammoth bone accumulations that were probably started by giant hunting, fishing and game parties. The key point has been made in developing civilizations; that having the patience, planning, skills, and cooperation to down a woolly mammoth was paramount.

Cave drawings and different types:

From 30,000 to 10,000 years ago, and before the great event, woolly mammoths were one of the most popular subjects of neolithic artists. But what we call the woolly mammoth was actually a species of genus Mammuthus. Mammuthus primigenius to be exact. It was not the only woolly prehistoric mammal as well, the woolly rhino, aka Coelodonta, also roamed the plains of Pleistocene Eurasia, Because of its one-ton size many found it easier to handle. A dozen other larger mammoth species existed in North America and Eurasia during the Pleistocene, some as big as 10-15 tonnes.

Biology: skin and fur

Woolly mammoths did share some solid characteristics with other warmed blooded hairy Pleistocene critters. They had four inches of solid fat underneath their skin, an added layer of insulation that helped to keep them toasty in the severest climatic conditions. Based on what scientists have learned from well-preserved individuals, woolly mammoth fur ranged in color from blond to dark brown, much like human hair.

Habitat, prey and predators:
The woolly mammothʼs habitat, is sometime called mammoth steppe. However between 42,000 and 6,000 years ago, a staggering 90% of areas suitable to mammoths disappeared. It consisted of the arid steppe-tundras. At one time spanning from north Canada, across Alaska and Siberia, to the west of Europe, and as far south as Spain. Mammoths were specialized foragers who stuck to their own ecological niche eating plants killed off by the winter frost, which they uncovered from beneath the snow and ice by using their tusks or by trampling. Sharing the broader prehistoric landscape with these mammoths were other herbivores such as bison, aurochs, and the deer family. Some of the local predators that were around at the time were prehistoric wolves, as well as hulking cave bears and cave lions, alongside their non-cave counterparts.

Extinction and Siberias Wrangel Island
Not built to handle changing earth conditions. Pretty much all the worldʼs mammoths were gone by the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The exception was a small population of woolly mammoths that lived on Wrangel Island, off the coast of Siberia, until 1700 BCE. Since they subsisted on limited resources, Wrangel Island mammoths were much smaller than their woolly relatives and are often referred to as dwarf elephants.

Who would have thought something so popular, for thousands of millennia, became estranged so long.

The neolithic age came rather late to different regions of earth. Especially in the north.

To one, during the Weichselian glaciation, almost 115,000 till about 11,700 years ago. Scandinavia begin the deep unfreezing from ice cover.

It is decided that, in Denmark, the Ice Age finally ended about 9,700 years ago. About 15,000 to 13,000 BC years ago. The ice sheet, that covered almost all of Scandinavia, slowly began to melt away.

The reindeer walked to the north followed by the reindeer hunters.
As the ice receded, reindeer, and what was left of pleistocene megafauna grazed the emerging tundra plains of Denmark and southernmost Sweden. This was the era of nomadic cultures who hunted in vast territories. Some that spanned over 100,000 square km. They explored and lived as nomads in huts and teepees. Mostly following the reindeer migrations and wildlife across the barren tundra landscapes. As well, following salmon, cod, seals and whatever aquatic creatures they could find.

It was the finish of a great ice age. At the end of the pleistocene, the climate slowly warmed up. Fighting what little warmth, food, and shelter was available. Nomadic hunters from central Europe slowly started becoming accustom to the Scandanavian region. And, traveling back and forth to where weather was more suitable. It was around 12,000 BCE, when many glaciers were melting, that permanent, nomadic, habitation begin in the region.
This barren land, there was not much plant cover, except for occasional arctic white birch and rowan. Slowly but surely, eventually a taiga forest appeared. Around 11,400 BCE, the Bromme culture emerged in Southern Scandinavia. This was a more rapidly warming era providing opportunity for other substantial hunting game animals than the ubiquitous reindeer. As former hunter-gather cultures, the Bromme culture was still largely dependent on reindeer and lived a nomadic life. Their camps diversified significantly and they were the first people to settle Southern Scandinavia (and the Southern Baltic area), on a permanent, yet still nomadic, basis.

Local climate changes, around 10,500 BCE, initiated both cultural changes, and the first settling of the northern parts of Scandinavia.
Initially, a thousand-year-long climate cool-down replaced the taiga with tundra and the local culture reverted to former traditions, focusing on reindeer hunting. This culture is now referred to as the Ahrensburg culture.
Around 9,500 BCE, the local climate warmed yet again, and the pre-Boreal era emerged, which triggered the Ahrensburg to settle the emerging tundra of northern Scandinavia. For the next two thousand years, the climatic phase known as the Boreal reigned in the Scandinavian region.

Mesolithic
A culture called the Maglemosian (Maglemose) culture lived in the areas of Denmark and southern Sweden around 7200BCE, or 9200 years ago. To the north, in Norway, and along the coast of western Sweden, the Fosna-Hensbacka culture was living mostly in changing seasonal camps. Along the shores and close to the now thriving forests. By the 7th millennium BCE, the climate in Scandinavia was warming as it transitioned from the former Boreal age to the Atlantic period. Reindeer and their hunters had already migrated and inhabited the lands of northern Scandinavia, and forests had established. Utilizing fire, boats and stone tools, these tribal cultures managed to survive in northern Europe. The northerners followed the herds and the salmon runs, moving south during the winters, moving north again during the summers. These early peoples followed cultural traditions. Similar to those practiced throughout other regions in the far north. Areas including modern Finland, Russia, and across the Bering Strait into the northernmost strip of North America. Comprising portions of today’s Alaska and Canada.

Wildlife
6,400 to 5,400 BCE (8,400 to 7,400 years before present). Kongemose culture, was the southern Scandanavian culture that followed maglemosian or maglemose. They acted as stewards for the aurochs, wisent, moose and red deer that roamed freely in the forests. All were game for tribes of what is now called northern culture. Like their predecessors, the Kongemose tribes also hunted marine animals such as seals. And, they fished in the rich shallow waters. North of the Kongemose people, lived other hunter-gatherers in most of southern Norway and Sweden, now dubbed the Nøstvet and Lihult cultures. Who are descendants of the Fosna and Hensbacka cultures. By the end of the 6th millennium BCE, as the sea levels rose gradually, these northerly tribal cultures continued their way of life. While the Kongemose culture was replaced by the Ertebølle culture. Adapting to climatic changes and flooding in their low lying southern regions, some areas were affected more severely.

Climate
By the 6th millennium BCE, the climate of Scandinavia was generally warmer and more humid than today. The southern regions were clad in lush temperate broadleaf and mixed forests.

Neolithic
During the 5th millennium BCE, the Ertebølle people learned pottery from neighbouring tribes in the south, who had begun to cultivate the land and keep animals. Soon, they too started to cultivate the land and, ca. 4000 BCE, they became part of the megalithic Funnelbeaker culture. During the 4th millennium BCE, these Funnelbeaker tribes expanded into Sweden up to Uppland. The Nøstvet and Lihult tribes (northern scandanavians) learned new technology from the advancing farmers, but not agriculture, and became the Pitted Ware cultures, towards the end of the 4th millennium BCE. These Pitted Ware tribes halted the advance of the farmers and pushed them south into south-western Sweden. Some say that the farmers were not killed or chased away, but that they voluntarily joined the Pitted Ware culture and became part of them. At least one settlement appears to be mixed, the Alvastra pile-dwelling.

3rd millennium bc: Proto indo european
Though the introduction of the proto indo europeans in northern Europe is still debated. By the 3rd millennium bce (before common era) it is agreed the northerners were over run. The language these early Scandinavians spoke is unknown, but towards the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, they were in the north. New tribes, who many scholars believe spoke proto-indo-European were the Corded Ware culture. They became known as the Battle-Axe culture in Scandinavia.
This new people advanced up to Uppland and the Oslofjord, and they probably provided the Proto-Germanic language that was the ancestor of the modern Scandinavian languages. These new tribes used the battle axe as a status symbol, were cattle herders and big change had begun.

Ultimately, the neolithic age led to the copper and bronze age(s). It would usher in a time of cultural advancement, strength and environmental change in Scandinavia.

Sources: Dalum Hjallese Debate club, geocenter.dk, national geographic, wikipedia, archieve.archaeology.org, and historum.com.

Panthera onca augusta, commonly known as the ‘giant jaguar’, is a species of jaguar that survived almost 2 million years ago, until about 11,700 years ago.

Skeletal parts, including jaws and teeth, of the giant jaguar was discovered on the Platte river, of Nebraska, in 1827, by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. He sent it to Joesph Leidy, at the academy of natural sciences in Philidelphia. Who was working on identifying some of the recent pleistocene megafauna discoveries.

Beginning around the 1840s, more findings came forward, from Flordia, Maryland to Tennessee.
Even Oregon, California (La Brae), and southwestern Mexico had remains of the giant jaguar.
More pieces became available to scientists, and in the early 1920s, they were able to differentiate and classify the different subspecies, sizes and genetics further.

Growl

Neolithic tar sands, in Los Angeles: Rancho La Brea

La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Natural asphalt (asphaltum, bitumen, pitch, or tar) was found near Hancock Park. Dating from at least 3500 BC, the tar preserved the bones of trapped Neolithic animals.

Bitumen lines, from the crude oil, seep up along the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field, which underlies much of the Fairfax District north of Hancock Park. Oil reaches the ground and forms pools, near modern day downtown Los Angelas, becoming asphalt as the the petroleum biodegrade or evaporate. It usually hardens into stubby mounds. The pools and mounds can be seen at the Museum. Below is a picture.

History

Aboriginal ‘Chumash and Tongva’ lived in La Brea building boats and neolithicly through time. Pulling fallen large tree trunks and pieces of wood from the ocean, they learned to seal the checks between the boards and wood by using the stagnant liquid. An expedition, led by Gaspar de Portolá, led the first documented visit to the tar sands by Spanish in 1769.

By the 1880’s, land was purchased by a Countess of Dundonald. A formal excavation began by Messrs Turnbull, Stewart & Co in 1886.

In 1901 a oil geologist was finally credited with recognizing that fossilized prehistoric animal bones were preserved in pools. John C. Merriam, and the university of California begain a major portion of the early anthropological work. In search of large skeletons, between 1913 and 1915, explorers excavated more than 100 sites finding thousands of specimens. These excavations though, while being examined, have gradually been filled, by an accumulation of asphaltum, dust, leaves, and water.

Only one human has been found, a partial skeleton of the La Brea Woman dated to around 10,000 years. She is estimated to have been 17 to 25 years old, and found associated with remains of a domestic dog.

Neolithic Architecture; pest control, chimney cleaning, and log cabin building.

North American scimitar – homotherium serum

Following its favorite snack, the woolly mammoth, it was said north American scimitar toothed cats may have migrated across the bering land bridge and spread throughout north America.

Discovery was by the famous French paleontologist Baron Cuvier, in 1824. He was the first to describe the serrated teeth of homotherium from deposits in France, thinking they belonged to a bear, or something else. They had less fossils than there cousins the sabre tooth cats, and it was believed they originated from them somehow, or, other cat beasts millions of years ago. Emilio Fabrini proposed the name homotherium in 1890. Translated in greek as ‘same beast’.

In north American, around 1893, the scimitar cat was first described by E.D. Cope as dinobastis serus. Its remains, from deposits dating between about 1.5 million and 10,000 years old, are known from Yukon to Florida. By 1962, they had adopted homotherium serum.

There is little doubt the “same beasts, or scimitars”, like sabre tooth cats, were derived from the late pliocene – early pleistocene (about 2 million years). And in turn, derived from machairodus, even longer ago.

Biology: 6 feet and 300 pounds?
Modern lions are similar size to scimitar but without the slender limbs. “same beasts” had 4 inch wide serrated teeth to inflict wounds. And, unlike there sabre tooth cousins teeth, which may have been a sexual attraction in finding mates, there shorter wider, finely serrated teeth, made a more powerful slicing tool. They had long legs, and sloping back. It allowed scimitar to travel up to 65km/h. See enlarged nose and nostrils? These cats were sneaky, sensory killing machines.

Actual skeletons of ‘same beasts’ suggests that h. serum is built for short bursts of speed, as well as agility. The first neck of the vertebra helped to support there massive muscles used to depress the head and teeth to inflict a killing bite. The pelvic region, including the sacral vertebrae, are bear-like. As is the short tail composed of 13 vertebrae. About half the number in long-tailed cats. Such features suggest ambushing and coming from behind.

Gassaway fissure and Friesenhahn caves:

The recovery adults and there cubs from caves in Texas and Tennessee suggest these animals lived in dens, possibly in family groups. This is further supported by the association of multiple mastodons found inside them. And, unlike dens of some of the other cat like species like sabretooths, mountain lions and others.

Did u see a scimitar cave den?

A partly dis-articulated skeleton of a juvenile, found with two complete adult skeletons, from Gassaway Fissure, Tennessee, estimated to have been 2 to 4 months old at death, probably represents a cub born in a denning cave.

Of great interest, were between 300 and 400 juvenile mammoths found in the caves. The majority were just 2-year olds. probably such calves became easy prey for scimitar cats. Indeed, the association of scimitars, homotherium or “same beasts” with proboscideans (elephants and mastodons) and rhino remains constant. It reinforces the idea that ‘same beasts or scimitars’ preyed selectively on these tough-skinned animals. As well long nose peccary’s, and turtles which were found in Texas, these “same beasts” would probably take down anything smaller than a young mastodon or rhino. Given the meal size, it could last there family weeks, or more.

What is a scimitar hunt?

Picture a grassy parkland like environment where mammoth or prey are usually found. Leaving its cave shelter or den, from stalking, the felid cat beast approaches a small heard of mammoths. After crouching behind small juniper tree brushes, it selectively finds its prey. A young 2 year old columbian mammoth playing slowly at distance from the pack. So starts a blindsidingly quick rush alongside the mammoth calf (pic). The cat jump attacks, snowballing its prey over, its deep claws pierce the shoulder of the mammoth so bad it is screaming. Straddling the chest of the crying woolly calf, the beast cat slashes the exposed mammoths neck with its scimitars. Immediately the child mammoths mother, and rest of the herd move forward, trumpeting towards action. Within minutes the mammoth calf quickly bleeds to death, while the ‘cat beast” retreats to cover nearby. When the herd finally abandons the young mammoth kill, the cat cautiously approaches, dragging the body in its powerful jaws, into its cave. There it dismembers and eats its prey, shearing and breaking down large chunks of flesh with its fangs and gulping them down. Only its baby teeth and its limb bone sockets are left, with telltale scratches and marks left to commemorate the scimitar cats killing power.