Archaeologica.org

Perhaps elephantidae did not recognize the small HE as a threat - in other words, HE learned to hunt faster than the Elephantidae evolved threat recognition abilities. If earlier homonids had been symbiotic and beneficial, then the lesson may have been learned too late.

As for recognizing Elephantidae as food sources, early H would have had to have been able to drive other scavengers off of dead carcases to get a first taste. It seems to me that the ability to kill the small cats and then the big cats was essential.

Perhaps netting played a role in the later, but that is impossible to determine. Early H must have gone after very young cats before they matured.

For that matter, when did H use fire?

That is my conclusion as well EP. With an inaccurate weapon you need a big target, this leads me to wonder what the size of a HG group would have been at that time.
With so much meat on four legs common sense says, use more hunters!

Roy.

For that matter, when did H use fire?

I left another forum recently EP cos of the bad tempers, and that was one of the subjects.
I pointed out that using fire and making are two different abilities.
Using fire may well have preceeded its making by some considerable time scale.

Roy.

Why go after three tons of meat on the hoof? What part in choosing the Mammoth as a prey was dictated by the available weapons?

Because it was relatively slow? As opposed to a gazelle.

That is my view Min. From that I would deduce that the HG groups of the time were larger than is currently the case.

Roy.

Maybe...... or maybe different groups cooperated in the hunt and had a big feast in celebration?

It would seem that there would be a lot of waste or loss to scavengers for a small group to bring down a mammoth. Any sort of preservation seems beyond their ability. The bones and skin would be useful materials.

For that matter, when did H use fire?

using fire and making are two different abilities.
Using fire may well have preceeded its making by some considerable time scale.

Roy.

In my considerably uneducated opinion, making fire probably came shortly after learning that banging two rocks together to make a tool could set stuff on fire. I would think they probably already knew what fire could do.

Another curious consideration :

Around 10,500 years ago, Clovis abruptly vanish from the archaeological record, replaced by a myriad of different local hunter-gatherer cultures. Why this happened no one knows but their disappearance coincides with the mass extinction of Ice Age big-game animals . . .
http://www.crystalinks.com/clovis.html

uniface wrote:Another curious consideration :

Around 10,500 years ago, Clovis abruptly vanish from the archaeological record, replaced by a myriad of different local hunter-gatherer cultures. Why this happened no one knows but their disappearance coincides with the mass extinction of Ice Age big-game animals . . .
http://www.crystalinks.com/clovis.html

Only the megafauna's extinctions occurred over millennia, while Clovis' apparently took (considerably) less than one or two centuries. So a connection escapes me.

Exactly, right or wrong Min, my line of reasoning.
So basically the spear decided the prey, because of its lack of accuracy, and the need for a reasonable of hunters determined some aspects of culture at that time.
WXBY. The main snag with that is that Iron pyrites, used with flint to produce sparks, is usually found in rocks somewhat unsuitable as tools or hammer stones.
The quantity of hot sparks is also abysmal! Bush men use the fire stick as I understand it.

Roy.

Only the megafauna's extinctions occurred over millennia, while Clovis' apparently took (considerably) less than one or two centuries. So a connection escapes me.

Recall that there were several "events," separated in time. As nearly as I can conject, more or less spread over the megafauna extinction period. Post/Cum hoc ergo propter hoc ? Or, where there's smoke, there's fire ?

basically the spear decided the prey, because of its lack of accuracy

Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is, once again, substituting what he imagines about it for the demonstrible reality of the situation he pictures.

With practice, accuracy with an atlatl is in no wise inferior to that with a bow and arrow -- heart shots on running game at thirty feet rating good but hardly exceptional and lung shots, in any case, sufficing.

The atlatl has the additional advantage of being unaffected by weather, making any "improvement" a bow might offer situational and moot.

Foreman of the jury! Who mentioned a spear thrower? I draw your attention to the witness's earlier point about development of the spear, not what it developed into.

Roy.

And what good's a spear if it's lethal only within the distance that a large, spear-perforated beastie is likely to turn around in, trampling the spearchucker into paste before expiring ?

Atlatls go back, as I recall, to Neanderthal. Which is probably as far back as any sort of definitive evidence of their use one way or the other is likely to have ever survived from.

Before that is monkeys, pointy sticks and conjecture.

You know -- the stuff "human evolution" depends on

I would again draw your attention to my earlier post concerning hand cast spears and their comparison with their olympic equivalent and the current javelin record.
I pointed out that nobody was likely to produce such a weapon then walk upto a Mammoth and ram their spear up its butt!
Concerning spear throwers and HSN, if they had such why are their spears always allegedly big and hefty, and why are HSN supposed to have used their spears like an assegai?
Experts site the number of HSN broken bones as evidence that that was the manner in which they used their spears.
And returning to human evolution, I would point out that I have yet to hear from you, or anyone else, a workable alternative to main stream Darwinism.

Roy.