Start in science. Life in an ancient mine: how did our ancestors hunt mammoths? It is enough for an ancient man to hunt a mammoth
Teenagers who read life books primitive people , we are sure that there are no secrets in this hunt. Everything is 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 an analysis of previous findings, force us to rethink the usual truths. So, archaeologists from the Institute of Primitive and Early History at the University of Cologne studied 46 sites and hunting grounds of Neanderthals in Germany, 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 to the huge beast. They deliberately chose prey of a certain type, and attacked individuals weighing less than a ton. The list of their trophies includes wild horses, deer, steppe bison. At least, this was the case 40-60 thousand years ago (this is the age of the studied finds). But not only the choice of the victim was important. Primitive people did not wander aimlessly through the forests and dales in the hope that they would be lucky. No, hunting became for them something like a military operation, which 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 at the enemy with the least losses for themselves. The real find for the “lovitva commanders” was the steep banks of the rivers. Here the earth suddenly left from under the feet of the intended victim. The invisible spirits of the rivers seemed to be ready to help people who came here in everything. It was possible to hide near a watering place and, jumping out of an ambush, finish off the gaping animals. Or wait near the ford. Here, stretching out in a chain, the animals one by one, carefully probing the bottom, move to the other side. Move slowly, cautiously. At these moments, they are very vulnerable, which both the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals, who collected their bloody catch, knew well. The cunning and prudence of the ancient hunters can be easily explained by their weakness. Their opponents were animals that sometimes weighed ten times more than they did. And he had to fight in close combat, staying close to the beast, furious with pain and fear. Indeed, before the invention of the bow, primitive man had to get close to the prey. Spear blows were delivered from fifteen meters, no further. They beat the beast with a pike and did it from three meters. So, if the operation “Word” or “Waterhole” was planned, the fighters had to hide somewhere behind the bushes, near the water, in order to reduce the distance separating from the beast to the limit with one jump. Endurance and precision meant life here. Haste and slip - death. Throwing yourself like a bayonet attack with a pointed stick at an adult mammoth is like death. And people hunted to still survive. The myth of 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 didn't come 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. Between the ribs of the animal lay a spear, assured the amateur archaeologist Alexander Rozenshtok, who was the first to examine the find. This spear, broken into eleven pieces, has since been considered the main argument of those who portrayed the insane courage of primitive people. But did that memorable hunt take place? A recent study disproved the obvious findings. In that remote era, the place where the remains of the elephant were found was the edge of the 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 seems that they were not even going to hunt with this spear. They, judging by the blunt end, dug the ground on the shore, and then dropped it into the water, and the current carried it into the lake, where it ran into 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. Here his legs buckled, the body sank to the ground. From the crowd of people who were watching the last convulsions of the beast from afar, a young man stepped out resolutely. I took the spear. Approached. Looked around. hit. Nothing dangerous. The elephant didn't even move. What is the strength drove a spear into him. Waved to the others. You can split the loot. This is also a plausible scenario. What about other finds? Torralba in Spain, Gröbern and Neumark Nord in Germany - skeletons of mammoths slain by people have also been found here. However, the first impression was again deceptive. Having re-examined the bones of animals, archaeologists found only characteristic traces of processing them with stone tools - obviously, traces of butchering carcasses, but this does not prove in any way that primitive people personally killed this prey. After all, the thickness of the skin of an adult mammoth, which reached about 4 meters in height, ranged from 2.5 to 4 centimeters. A primitive wooden spear could be used in best case inflict a laceration on the 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 carcasses would simply go bad. “Neanderthals were smart people. They wanted to get the maximum meat with a minimum of risk to themselves, ”archaeologists unanimously note. Neanderthals lived in small groups, which consisted 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? No wonder he is a "reasonable being" by definition. Maybe he knew the secrets of hunting mammoths? Archaeologists from the University of Tübingen have been examining mammoth bones found in caves near Ulm, where the people of the Gravett culture were located (by the time it arose, Neanderthals had already died out). The analysis of the finds gave an unambiguous result. In all cases, carcasses of mammoth cubs aged from two weeks to two months were butchered. Employees of the Paris Museum of Natural History explored another site of people of the Gravette culture, located in the town of Milovich in the Czech Republic. The remains of 21 mammoths were found here. In seventeen cases, these are cubs, and in another four, young animals. The Miloviche site was located on the slope of a small valley, whose bottom was made of loess. In the spring, when mammoth cubs were born, the frozen ground thawed, and the loess turned into a mess in which the young mammoths got stuck. Kindred could not help them. The hunters waited for the herd to leave, and then finished off the victim. Perhaps people deliberately drove the mammoths into this "swamp", scaring them with torches. But what about the brave ones? Really, there were never those who, with a spear at the ready, desperately rushed at the mammoth, not sparing their belly? Probably, there were also such daredevils. Only heroes - they are heroes for that, to die young, for example, under the feet of an angry elephant. We, in all likelihood, are the descendants of those prudent hunters who, from an ambush, could wait for days until a lone mammoth cub dies in the trap where it fell. But we, their descendants, are alive, and usually only a memory remains of the heroes.
What if, like in science fiction films, mutants take over the planet? Many people will die, but you will not, 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 died out about 6-10 thousand years ago. But there are still elephants, hippos, rhinos. Smaller animals still live in the middle (climatic) zone: elk, bear, wild boar, deer, but a real survival specialist simply has to know, just in case, how to get any size animal, including elephants and hippos.
Let's get back to mammoths. How do you think ancient people hunted mammoths for meat? Films, history books, and paintings in museums provide many graphic answers to this question. The whole tribe first drove the poor animal into the pit, and then threw stones at the mammoth in the pit to death.
Catching large ungulates with the help of trapping pits is still practiced in some places, but personally I have not heard that hunters slaughtered an animal that came across in a pit with stones. Do you know why? Because giant hematomas form at the impact sites. In other words, bruises. And more precisely, a little appetizing, jelly-like mass of black-blue-violet color. It is unlikely that the ancient hunters deliberately spoiled the meat of the hunted animals in this way. In order to kill a mammoth in a pit, it was enough to poke him in the neck with a spear and wait for the mammoth to die from blood loss.
It is also known that ancient people covered the floors in dwellings with mammoth skin. But in a cramped hole, it was not possible to remove the skin from the mammoth. And it is quite difficult to dig a hole in the permafrost. During the ice age, in the habitats of mammoths, the earth was frozen for sure. It turns out that there were no holes either. How were mammoths killed? Yes, just like modern elephants or elks with the help of primitive weapons. For example, African pygmies with his toy weapons hunting like this, they hit the stomach with a spear and after waiting for an hour after two or three inflammation of the peritoneum of the elephant, they approached and finished off the beast with a spear in the neck. The main thing in such a hunt was not to drive a wounded animal in vain. The beast retreated and not noticing the persecution behind him, he 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 in the footsteps.
As you can see, the presence of all the warriors of the tribe, including their angry wives and starving children, is not necessary to kill any large beast for meat. One experienced hunter was quite enough.
The same applies to the use of traps on elephants. They don't dig holes for elephants. Trapping holes are dug for smaller animals, where tiny elephants can really get into. Adult elephants (and hippos) use other traps. They hang a spear smeared with a thick layer of clay over the elephant path. So that total weight a spear with a lump of clay was over a hundred kilograms. Such a modernized spear can be hung by two adult men on a tree branch and, with the help of a simple trigger, fix the spear over the path. Pygmies smeared clay on an elephant spear already on a tree. An elephant (a hippopotamus, an antelope, a zebra ...) passing under a tree touched the guard and the spear falling down, pierced the elephant (or hippopotamus) through and through. Which led to the rapid death of the animal.
Similar spear-traps were used almost all over the world. In Vietnam, similar traps, lumps of clay with many bamboo stakes, were successfully "hunted" even by American invader soldiers. In addition, such traps are much easier than piling up logs in bear traps. By the way, mouth-type traps are also known all over the world. For example, in Africa, even hippos were caught with traps like a mouth. Hippos out of the water are quite shy and cautious, and the fear of human traps was transmitted to them (hippos), apparently, at the gene level. locals in order to scare away the hippos, they put on their path a kind of trap made of a pumpkin or a small stump of a tree resting one end (pumpkin) on a stick. Such a layout was quite enough for the hippos to stop using this trail for a long time.
On Siberian bears and elks, with a sufficiently urgent need, you can put a powerful crossbow (crossbow) with a spear instead of an arrow. Such crossbows (crossbows) with bows, which were pulled by two or three adult men at once, hunters set up until the middle of the twentieth century. Then the crossbow began to be replaced firearms or loops of steel cable.
The fact that all the above described traps are considered poaching and are prohibited for use everywhere, you yourself have already guessed. Knowing and applying are not the same thing. But just in case, you need to know.
What do you say: “Tyrannosaurus appeared from somewhere and needs to be finished off? I hope you didn't scare him. Then let's get together now and do as you ask."
Hunting is the main way of obtaining food, which for hundreds of thousands of years ensured the very existence of mankind. This is very surprising: after all, from the point of view of zoologists, neither a person nor his closest "relatives" - great apes They are not predators at all. According to the structure of the teeth, we are omnivores - creatures that can eat both plant and meat food. And yet it was man who became the most dangerous, most bloodthirsty predator of all that ever inhabited our planet. The most powerful, and the most cunning, and the most swift-footed animals were powerless to resist before him. As a result, hundreds of animal species were completely exterminated by man during his history, dozens of them are now on the verge of extinction.
Paleolithic man - a contemporary of the mammoth - hunted this beast not so often. In any case, much less often than it recently seemed to both scientists and those who judged the Stone Age only by fiction. But still, it is difficult to doubt that it was the specialized hunting for mammoths that was the main source of subsistence for the population of the Dnieper-Don historical and cultural region, whose whole life was closely connected with the mammoth. This is what most researchers think today. However, not all.
For example, the Bryansk archaeologist A. A. Chubur is convinced that at all times a person was able to develop only natural “mammoth cemeteries”. In other words, our mammoth hunters were really only very active bone collectors and, apparently... corpse-eaters. This very original concept seems to me completely unconvincing.
In fact, let's try to imagine: what kind of " natural processes could cause such a massive and regular death of mammoths? A. A. Chubur has to draw absolutely incredible pictures of the constant flooding of the high right bank of the ancient Don. These floods seemed to carry the corpses of mammoths far into the depths of the ancient beams, and even there they were settled by the local population after the decline in water ... At the same time, for some reason, the mammoths stubbornly did not want to migrate to high areas and save yourself from mass destruction!
The places of human settlements were somehow bypassed by those fantastic floods. Archaeologists did not find the slightest trace of such natural disasters there! This fact alone is already capable of undermining the credibility of the hypothesis of A. A. Chubur.
By the way, there really are “mammoth cemeteries” in Eastern Europe. However, it is in the vicinity of settlements with houses made of mammoth bones that they are completely absent. And yes, they are very rare indeed.
Meanwhile, think about it: in the vast territory of the center of the Russian Plain, the population was able to completely connect their lives with the extraction of mammoths. On this basis, people created a very peculiar and developed culture that functioned successfully for ten thousand years. Well, all this time they were engaged exclusively in the development of clusters of corpses?
Real "mammoth cemeteries" were indeed visited by the man of the Upper Paleolithic era and to some extent mastered by him. But none of them look like long-term camps with dwellings made of mammoth bones! And their age, as a rule, is younger: about 13-12 thousand years ago (Berelekh in Northern Asia, Sevskoe in Eastern Europe, etc.). Perhaps, on the contrary: a person increased attention to such places just when the herds of living mammoths were noticeably reduced?
Apparently, so it was! There is no reason to deny that the people who lived in the basins of the Dnieper, Don, Desna and Oka 23-14 thousand years ago were mammoth hunters. Of course, they did not refuse, on occasion, to pick up valuable tusks and bones of animals that died of natural causes. But such “gathering” simply could not be their main occupation, because finds of this kind always carry an element of chance. Meanwhile, in order to survive in the periglacial zone, a person needed not a sporadic, but a regular supply of such vital products as mammoth meat, skins, bones, wool and fat. And, judging by the archaeological materials that we have, people really managed to ensure this regularity for many millennia. But how did they learn to defeat such a powerful and intelligent beast? .. In order to answer this difficult question, let's get acquainted with the weapons of the people of the Upper Paleolithic era.
Spear thrower
The mass development of new material (bone, tusk, horn) contributed to the development and improvement hunting weapons. But the main thing was still not this, but the technical inventions of that time. They dramatically increased both the force of impact and the distance at which the hunter could hit the game. The first major invention Paleolithic man on this path became a spear thrower.
What was it? - It seems to be nothing special: a simple stick or a bone rod with a hook at the end. However, a hook pressed against the blunt end of the shaft of a spear or dart, when thrown, gives it an additional push. As a result, the weapon flies farther and hits the target much harder than if it were just thrown by hand. Spear throwers are well known from ethnographic materials. They were widespread among a wide variety of peoples: from the Aborigines of Australia to the Eskimos. But when did they first appear and to what extent were they used by the Upper Paleolithic population?
It is difficult to answer this question with complete certainty. The oldest bone spear throwers that have come down to us were found in France in the monuments of the so-called Madeleine culture (Late Paleolithic). These finds are genuine works of art. They are decorated with sculptural images of animals and birds and, perhaps, were not ordinary, but ritual, "ceremonial" weapons.
At the sites of Eastern European mammoth hunters, such objects made of bone have not yet been found. But this does not mean that mammoth hunters did not know spear throwers at all. Most likely, here they were simply made of wood. Perhaps it is worth taking a closer look at the objects that have so far been described by archaeologists as "bone and tusk rods." Among them, there may well be fragments of spear throwers, albeit not as beautiful as those found in France.
Bow and arrows
Exactly this formidable weapon of all those created by primitive man. Until recently, scientists believed that it appeared relatively late: about 10 thousand years ago. But now many archaeologists are confident that in reality the bow began to be used much earlier. Miniature flint arrowheads have now been found in settlements where people lived 15, 22, and even 30 thousand years ago!
True, during the entire Upper Paleolithic, these finds did not become massive. A little later, in the Neolithic, they are found everywhere and in very in large numbers. Paleolithic arrowheads are characteristic only of individual cultures, and there are relatively few of them. This suggests that for at least twenty thousand years the use of bows and arrows was very limited, despite the clear merits of these weapons (see Chap. "Conflicts and Wars").
A quite natural question arises: why did this happen? Why did the bow not immediately spread everywhere, displacing the same spear thrower? Well, there is an explanation for this. Any invention, even the most perfect, is introduced into life and begins to improve only when it is really necessary for its era, its culture. After all, the principle of the steam engine was first discovered and applied not by Watt or even Polzunov, but by Heron of Alexandria. It happened in the 1st century BC, long before both England and Russia appeared on the world map. But then, in a slave society, such an invention could only be used as a fun toy.
In driven hunting, which fully provided a person with the necessary prey, the bow, of course, was not completely useless, but did not play a decisive role. In general, the importance of the bow as a hunting weapon is greatly exaggerated in our literature. The same ethnographic observations show that highly developed hunter-gatherer tribes successfully obtained the required amount of game for themselves, mainly by "beamless" methods. For example, the peoples of the taiga zone of Siberia and the Far North-East, as a rule, knew the bow, but did not differ in the art of shooting. On reindeer they hunted with spears, and sea animal- with swivel harpoons and nets.
Apparently, already in the Mesolithic-Neolithic, the bow was not so much a hunting weapon as a military weapon. And it was in this capacity that he was truly indispensable. Further improvement of the bow and the development of shooting techniques are associated primarily with the increased frequency of clashes between human groups.
Spears and darts
This weapon, which appeared at the dawn of human development, becomes much more diverse and perfect in the Upper Paleolithic. In the previous Mustye (Middle Paleolithic) era, mainly heavy horned spears were used. Now the most Various types tools of this kind. Among them were massive, designed for close combat. They could be made both in the old "Acheulean" way (when the pointed end of a wooden spear was simply burned on fire), and in a new way - from whole pieces of a dissected and straightened mammoth tusk. At the same time, short light darts were used, which were sometimes also made entirely of tusks. Similar tools have been found in many places, including the settlements of mammoth hunters.
The shapes and sizes of dart tips were very diverse. From the very beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, flint points were supplemented with bone or tusk ones, which significantly improved the quality. throwing weapons. In the future, loose tips appear, approximately in the middle of the Upper Paleolithic era, 23-22 thousand years ago (see the "Tools" chapter).
Of course, mammoth hunters also used ancient weapons human: clubs. The latter were heavy, "melee", and light, throwing. One of the options for such weapons was the famous boomerangs. In any case, in the Upper Paleolithic site of Mamutova Cave (Poland), an object was found that was similar in appearance to Australian heavy boomerangs, but made from mammoth tusk. By the way, it is worth noting that the Australians themselves use heavy (non-returning) boomerangs for serious purposes. Glorified throughout the world, returning boomerangs serve them only for games or for hunting birds.
Were there pit traps in the Paleolithic?
But how did people hunt mammoths with such weapons? To begin with, let us recall again the panel by V. M. Vasnetsov “ Stone Age”, decorating the first hall of the Moscow Historical Museum.
“... An angry poor mammoth is raging in a trap pit, and a crowd of half-naked savages, men and women, finishes him off with whatever they have to: with cobblestones, spears, arrows ...” Yes, for a long time mammoth hunting was imagined that way! Similar ideas are reflected in school textbooks, and in popular books, and in M. Pokrovsky's story "Mammoth Hunters". That's just ... it was hardly the case in reality.
Think for yourself: how could people who had only wooden or bone shovels at their disposal build a trapping pit for a mammoth with them? Yes, of course, they knew how to dig small dugouts and storage pits up to a meter deep. But the trap for such an animal as a mammoth must be huge! Is it easy to dig such a hole, and not even in soft soil, but in conditions permafrost? The efforts expended at the same time clearly did not correspond to the results: after all, only one animal could fall into the pit, at best! So wouldn't it have been easier to get it some other way? Like... with a spear?
Can you kill an elephant with a spear?
The experience of the modern backward peoples of Africa shows that it is quite possible to kill an elephant using only a spear as a weapon. For example, the pygmies have achieved such great skill in this that two or three people coped with a similar task with relative ease. It is known that in the life of the elephant herd the leader enjoys exceptionally high authority. It is his behavior that determines the safety of the entire group. Usually a herd of elephants graze for a long time in the same area. Individual animals, especially young ones, tend to fight off the group, get out from under the protection of the leader.
African hunters have long known that, having a delicate sense of smell, elephants see very poorly. Given this, the pygmies with the greatest caution sneaked up on such a lone beast. For camouflage, not only the direction of the wind was used, but also the elephant droppings with which they were smeared. One of the hunters got close to the elephant, sometimes even under the belly, and delivered a fatal blow with a spear.
The pygmies of the 19th-20th centuries AD already had spears with iron tips. With them, they most often cut the tendons of the hind legs of the elephant. Our distant ancestor, a Paleolithic hunter, armed only with a wooden horn spear, most likely beat the mammoth obliquely into the groin area with it. When fleeing, the animal, distraught with pain, touched the ground with the shaft, the bushes. As a result, the weapon was driven inside, breaking large blood vessels... The hunters pursued the wounded beast to death. Among the Pygmies, such a pursuit of an elephant could last 2-3 days.
We note right away: where mammoth bones were used as construction material, they are found in great numbers, hundreds and thousands. Analyzes and calculations of these bones, carried out by paleozoologists, show that in all cases their collection gives a picture of a “normal herd”. In other words, the settlements contain in certain proportions the bones of females and males, and old individuals, and mature ones, and young animals, and cubs, and even the bones of unborn, uterine mammoths. All this is possible only in one case: mammoth hunters, as a rule, did not exterminate individual animals, but a whole herd, or at least a significant part of it! And such an assumption is quite consistent with what archaeologists know about the method of hunting, the most common in the Upper Paleolithic.
driven hunting
The collective pen was in the Upper Paleolithic era the main way of hunting for large animal. Some places of such mass slaughters are well known to archaeologists. For example, in France, near the town of Solutre, there is a rock under which the bones of tens of thousands of horses that fell off a steep cliff were found. Probably, in the period about 17 thousand years ago, more than one herd died here, directed to the abyss by Solutrean hunters... An ancient ravine was excavated near the city of Amvrosievka in South-Eastern Ukraine. It turned out that many thousands of bison found their death at the bottom of it ... Apparently, people hunted mammoths in a similar way - where this hunt was their main occupation. True, we do not yet know of clusters of mammoth bones like Solutra and Amvrosievka. Well, hopefully there will be more places like this in the future.
It is worth noting one of the most characteristic features of hunting in the Paleolithic - the preference given to some particular type of prey. In the region of interest to us, this preference was given to the mammoth, a little to the south - to the bison, and in the south-west of Eastern Europe - to the reindeer. True, the predominant object of hunting has never been the only one. For example, Western European hunters of horses and reindeer happened to kill mammoths as well. Siberian and North American buffalo hunters did the same. Yes, and mammoth hunters, on occasion, did not refuse to pursue deer or horses. Driven hunting in the Paleolithic was not the only way to get the beast. It had a distinct seasonal character. "Large pens" such as those described above were undertaken no more than 1-2 times a year (ethnographic analogies also confirm this well: primitive hunters knew how to protect nature much better than modern humanity!). The rest of the time, people, as a rule, got their own food, hunting either in small groups or alone.
hunting dogs
With these methods of "lonely" hunting, obviously, one of the remarkable achievements of mankind was connected: the domestication of the dog. The oldest dog bones in the world, very similar to wolf bones, but still different from them, were discovered at the Eliseevichi 1 site in the Dnieper region and date back about 14 thousand years ago. Thus, this most important moment of the Upper Paleolithic era is directly related to the area occupied at that time by East European mammoth hunters... Of course, at that time the dog was not yet ubiquitous. And, probably, a sudden meeting with the first domestic animal made an indelible impression on those who had hitherto known only wild animals.
Fishing
A few words should be said about fishing in the Paleolithic. No remnants of fishing gear - hooks, sinkers, remnants of nets or tops, etc. - not found in the parking lots of that time. Specialized fishing tools most likely appeared later. But fish bones are also found in the settlements of mammoth hunters, although quite rarely. I have already mentioned a necklace of fish vertebrae found in the upper cultural layer of the Kostenki 1 site. big fish hunted with a dart - like any other game. Only for this case special skill was required.
Hunting rules
And, finally, another important point worth mentioning is the attitude of the Paleolithic man to the world around him, to the same game. Let me remind you that the culture of mammoth hunters existed for at least 10 thousand years. This is an incredibly long period, probably even difficult to imagine from the point of view of our contemporary. After all, “civilized humanity” had a much shorter period of time to put the whole world on the brink of an ecological catastrophe. But in the Paleolithic era, the population of the Russian Plain for many millennia managed, ultimately, to correctly regulate the ecological balance, to prevent the extinction of animal species on which its own existence depended.
Hunting as a feat
Hunting for a large animal, as a rule, was of a commercial nature. But apparently murder dangerous predator regarded as a feat, as a sure path to glory. The famous burials of two teenagers found in Sungir contain the most interesting finds - pendants from the claws of a tigrolv - a powerful beast that really combined the features of a lion and a tiger (for a long time this beast was called " cave lion", but the term is now almost obsolete). One of the buried had two such pendants, the other had one. Undoubtedly, the possession of such things had a deep symbolic meaning. Perhaps it was a reward for a perfect feat? ..
Mammoths and Bipeds
Winter. For a long time past times glaciation of the highlands of the North-East of Yakutia. The flat, in some places slightly hilly plain is covered with white snow. dazzling bright rays suns play with multi-colored sparks on this snowy white silence. In a light breeze, the yellow heads of sparse cereals, protruding from under the snow, quietly sway. In the distance, a noticeably arched outline long lake- old people. At its bend, a herd of mammoths quietly grazes. Each of them is the size of a huge cart or haystack placed on four thick chocks. But among them there is also a very playful, mobile young growth of much smaller sizes. Not inferior in size to modern large bulls, the "kids" start amusing offensive and retreat games and run around majestic relatives.
The surroundings are quiet and calm. The giants of these expanses, deftly wielding their huge tusks, rake the snow, chew withered grass and coarse shrub vegetation extracted from under the snow with their powerful jaws.
But the silence is snowy plain and the inviolable peace of the mighty mammoths turned out to be deceptive. Behind them patiently and hidden 
wise and insidious two-legged creatures - people - watched. The hunters dressed in animal skins suddenly jumped out from behind the hillocks with deafening cries. The leader of the mammoths let out an alarming roar and led his herd away from people - to the lake. The cunning trick of the hunters worked: the animals ran towards their certain death. As soon as they began to cross the lake covered with ice and snow, terrible cracks snaked under their feet. Crazed beasts instinctively gathered in a dense crowd. Half a meter of 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. Mighty animals in mortal horror began to crush each other, floundering in the water, turning multi-ton blocks of ice like light toys. Weak animals were under water, and strong animals furiously beat the ice edge with flexible trunks and strong tusks. But soon their strength dried up. A whole herd of mammoths perished without exception and became the prey of savvy hunters of the Stone Age. The latter began to perform an unimaginably energetic ritual dance of good luck...
According to competent experts, the life of the tribes of the Stone Age largely depended on the production of large animals. By hunting only small game, they could not provide for all the needs of their existence. The people of the Stone Age, having no tools for hunting large animals, nevertheless knew the “Achilles heel” of such herd and heavy animals as mammoths. They perfectly mastered the method of hunting mammoths and their companions ( woolly rhinos, bison, wild horses) by driving through the ice.
modern people Huge accumulations of bones surprise - cemeteries of the most uneven-aged mammoths. Scientists put forward various versions of the solution to this mystery. Very valuable finds often appear on the table of specialists - shreds of red, dark gray or black wool, bones with dried tendons. Occasionally, scientists get whole skeletons and the remains of the corpses of mammoths, rhinos, fossil bison and horses. Researchers study stone or bone arrowheads and spears of Stone Age hunters, argue about hunting methods and techniques, and are surprised by the ability of primitive people to survive in extreme icing conditions.
Starting from the Stone Age, mankind has passed through the Bronze and Iron Ages.
In the history of mankind, the 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 the studies of P. Wood, L. Vachek and others (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 Deering-Yuryakh), hunting tribes appeared about 35 thousand years ago. They until the complete disappearance of mammoths from the face of the earth, at least, hunted for them for at least 250 centuries. IN glacial period in search of prey, these tribes spread to North America.
Did humans kill mammoths?
Scientists have long somehow agreed by default that modern man - main enemy all life on earth. As it turns out, it's hereditary. According to the American archaeologist Tod 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 died out as a result of a sharp climate change 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 on the basis of a study of 41 areas in which the bones of the ancestors of elephants were found. Comparing these places, he discovered a curious pattern: mammoths died out much faster where nearby were the sites of ancient people. In those areas where people did not have time to settle, the natural death of mammoths occurred much later.
Despite the absence of the greenhouse effect and ozone holes in those ancient times, people, it turns out, did a good job and at no cost. National economy. Although there was no world fur market then, mammoth skins were in great demand - apparently, this was the main attire of our prehistoric ancestors. Yes, and mammoth meat was perhaps the main delicacy. Moreover, they had to get all this on their own - active hunting led, as a result, to the complete destruction of the "furry elephants".
http://www.utro.ru/articles/2005/04/12/427979.shtml
American scientists inflicted a crushing defeat on 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 last years the unfortunate fact of the discovery of an extremely small number of complete skeletons of these fossil animals was explained by the fact that most of them fell under the primitive carving knife. Other hypotheses, such as an ecological catastrophe or a deadly epidemic, were rejected as untenable.
But the Americans rehabilitated their ancestors. On international conference in Hot Springs, an explorer with the strikingly appropriate surname Firestone declared 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 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. Approximately 41 thousand years ago, at a distance of 250 light years from Earth, supernova. First, cosmic radiation reached our planet, followed by a stream of ice particles that began to bombard mammoth habitats.
The Americans even found traces of this radiation, for which they had to go to Iceland and delve into marine sediments. After digging to the right layers, they found an unusually high concentration of carbon C-14, which was explained by the influence of radiation from that very ill-fated supernova. And in the layers corresponding to the period of the untimely death of mammoths, radioactive pieces of ice were found.
It should be noted that Mr. Firestone was so kind that he did not completely break all other hypotheses about the causes of the death of mammoths. With full confidence, he declared 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.
Do you want to become the greatest stone age hunter? We will open all the secrets of the game, tell you how to complete the quests. Little tricks will save you time and nerves.
Far Cry Primal - passing the quest hunting for a mammoth
In the game Far Cry Primal, the mammoth is the largest and strong beast. It is very important to keep your distance from such animals. Be sure to use traps, they will delay the beast and give you the opportunity to regroup or run away. A lot of useful things can be removed from the body of a mammoth.
In Far Cry Primal, hunting a mammoth is an exciting and dangerous activity. This is where the passage of this game begins, where we and a group of hunters will try to kill a mammoth that has strayed from the herd. When hunting a large game such as a mammoth, it is important to separate it from the pack.
Tip: It's easier to kill an animal that no one helps.
The developers have diversified hunting for large animals. In Far Cry Primal, mammoth hunters can set traps for mammoths or swoop down and beat him to death. If you are a lone hunter, then in Far Cry Primal how to kill a mammoth yourself? To do this, you will need at least 10 arrows, which are desirable to launch from afar, so that you can quickly hide. It is safer to use a trap and while the animal is stuck in it, beat it with a club or stab it with a spear.
Manual mammoth
The question arises in Far Cry Primal how to tame a mammoth, when it’s not something to feed him, it’s creepy to approach him. To do this, you need to complete quests and tasks given by the villagers during the game, and unlock skills for the points received. You need to start small, gain experience and get to the group of insidious animals, where the mammoth will become available.
Feel like a mammoth
If you have the DLC installed, you will definitely come across the quest - The Legend of the Mammoth. Far Cry Primal The Legend of the Mammoth, the passage of this quest will begin from the moment when the shaman in the village gives you one suspicious potion to drink. Your spirit will be transferred to the carcass of a huge mammoth and a task will appear - to find the killers of animals, your relatives. The torn remains of mammoths will lie around and you must go in hot pursuit in search of the killer. Further, the spirit of the rhinoceros will be revealed, which became the cause of their death. After a short battle, he will start to run away and when you catch up with him, the spirit will call for assistants who will attack you. A couple of blows in response, usually enough for them, and they will crumble into pieces of ice. When you destroy all the rhinos in the area, the spirit will again try to hide. Having caught up with him, you will again have to fight with the rhinos, which he will set against you. There will be more of them and they will attack more aggressively than the previous ones.
Tip: To make it easier to fight the rhinos in the second location, take a position on the top of the hill where you came from. When they respawn and attack in waves, it will be easier for you to fight them off in a narrow passage. You can also roll boulders that lie around on them and thereby kill them.
After the victory, the spirit will start flying away from you again, it will lead you to a clearing with geysers and again a herd of rhinos will attack you.
Tip: Never expose a mammoth's side to a blow, a rhino's side blow is almost death. To make it easier to fight back, stand so that there is a tree in front of you, and a rock closes your back and beat the enemies who will run up to you.
In the same way, you can easily deal with the boss - the spirit of the rhinoceros.
