Monte Verde Annex?

[Rokcet Scientist]

That's a big IF, afaic, considering the improbability of that scenario, as I've argumented.

[Minimalist]

It's up to someone else to look at the bones and say "that is NOT a stegomastodon, you ninny!" Right now, we have to assume that it is.

I wouldn't know the difference if one of them kicked me in the ass.

[Forum Monk]

Ever seen the Chilean/West Patagonian/Andean landscape, Monk?

Nope. But I hope to be in Bolivia this coming spring.

[Minimalist]

They don't look so bad. I'd go around rather than over the top.

[Rokcet Scientist]

And yet the bones are there.....

Seriously, if the bones are correctly identified (and, I'd have to hope they were careful about that before making the announcement) then they either lived there or were brought there.

IF the bones have correctly been identified (which I doubt), and as it is extremely unlikely that elephantine fauna lived west of the Andes, the Monte Verdeans would have had to go get them (or parts of them) east of the Andes, and schlepped them across the Andes to Chile (i.o.w. crossing the Andes twice!).

Move over Hannibal...!

The scenario gets more and more unbelievable.

[Minimalist]

That's why I suspect that Wiki is wrong and the stegos went there themselves and were done in by the Monte Verdeans who must have considered them a walking, shaggy, supermarket.

[Rokcet Scientist]

They don't look so bad.

They don't?
Ask those people who crashed there with their plane, and had to eat – yes: eat – one another to survive how bad it is...

I'd go around rather than over the top.

You would? That would be – AS THE CROW FLIES – an 11,500 kilometer (= 7,200 mile) detour, Min! IRL probably four times that!
40,000 kilometers is a mighty long walk...!

[Forum Monk]

When you were there, RC, did you find the Uspallata Pass?
Its a natural, low rising, and broad pass between Argentina and Chile.

[Minimalist]

That looks like a very nice spot for a stroll, Monk. I could see bringing a picnic basket. Maybe playing a little softball.....having a beer or two....

[Rokcet Scientist]

When you were there, RC, did you find the Uspallata Pass?
Its a natural, low rising, and broad pass between Argentina and Chile.

Indeed it is, Monk.
But "low" is not the applicable word here: it's at an altitude of 3,810 m (12,500 ft). Very low oxygen: you (and I) cannot keep up a marching tempo for more than 10 paces at that altitude before you/we need to rest for a half hour! Imagine what that does to a 5 tonne animal!
Trees don't grow at altitudes over 1,800 meters (6,000 ft). Grass doesn't grow at altitudes over 2,100 meters (8,000 ft). There is no fluid water there. Nor even ice or snow. That's how dry it is! Look at that picture you posted yourself: it is a completely desolate, barren place. In the literal sense of those words. Nothing lives there.
And 15,000 years ago, in the Würm ice age, when it was much colder and even drier than today, those max. altitudes, at which flora would still grow and at which there would be fluid water, were a lot lower than today. So it was even more barren then.

There was nothing to eat or drink for those Stegomastodons on their epic journey across the Andes.
So they didn't (eat, drink, OR journey).

[Take3]

I wonder if a transalpine migration theory is even neccessary with regard to these Stegos.

Unless I missed something (always possible) we're talking about a few disarticulated (by humans) bones not a skeleton. There's no reason to assume that the whole living animal was ever on the mountain.

I've thought for a long time that the bones of megafauna have been ignored completely as a product within prehistoric trade networks. When I say megafuana I include all relevant pleistocene, any extant holocene species and the great whales. Anyone who's looked at studies involving the efficiency of ancient tools will agree that the stone axe is so woeful at chopping wood that a market or incentive for long distance transport of tradeable pre-fabricated building materials is almost certain for a society with the economic infrastructure to support it. With the distribution of say obsidian, seashells, and depending on who you believe corn, the networks to support such a trade seem to have been established well back in prehistory.

Compared to wood, bone is lighter, easy to work and comes ready to use. If you have animals with big enough bones it makes much more sense to use them to build your house than hacking at a tree for potentially weeks only to spend yet more time stripping splitting and sectioning the log. 1491 which I know a lot of you have read, does go into the efficiency of stone axes briefly.

Now the bones they found; teeth etc aren't really the long bones you would expect to see used as building materials so feel free to attack this on the basis that while my theory holds water (or doesn't), the Monte Verde Stegodonts do not provide any real evidence to support it. However, I maintain that gauging the distribution of animal populations based on where humans have deposited their remains, is problematic.

[Rokcet Scientist]

If you have animals with big enough bones it makes much more sense to use them to build your house than hacking at a tree for potentially weeks only to spend yet more time stripping splitting and sectioning the log.

In the Ukraine paleo man used mammoth tusks as uprights, to build dwellings. Sometimes hundreds of tusks for just one dwelling.
But he didn't have to schlepp 'm across a 7,000 meter mountain range.

[kbs2244]

Would a higher sea level at the time have any effect on the vegetation growth and air density at the pass?
(I don’t know that it was higher at the time.
Just a thought.)

[Minimalist]

It seems to me that EVERYTHING has an effect on vegetation.

Still, were I leading a hunting party at a kill site, I would take the opportunity to butcher whatever meat I and the rest of the group could carry away and get out of Dodge before other predators showed up. I don't know if carrying the bones away is the most energy efficient way to handle that situation.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Still, were I leading a hunting party at a kill site, I would take the opportunity to butcher whatever meat I and the rest of the group could carry away and get out of Dodge before other predators showed up. I don't know if carrying the bones away is the most energy efficient way to handle that situation.

It isn't.
It's also stupid to stay at the kill site a second longer than absolutely necessary. Just as stupid as schlepping ginormous elephantine bones around. With or without meat attached.
They didn't have golf carts! Or donkeys! Or pick-up trucks!