>> ^Throbbin:
They exist everywhere, and will only try to bully someone if they outnumber and/or outsize their victim.


That reminds me of a friend, in a bar, who pretty rudely told me to get him a drink. After me telling him to piss off and buy his own drink about 3 times, I then realised he was holding back a mammoth who was about to eat me alive. I quickly scarpered to the bar, and my good ol' Geordie friend took care of the interloper!

Hooray for people who are as tame as a bear, but when provoked put the smack down on the douche bags who go out looking for trouble!

>> ^Throbbin:
>> ^cybrbeast:
>> ^ravioli:
According to a well hidden article in Wikipedia, mammoths were actually hunted for their wool. Before the advent of mass production, humans hunted down entire mammoth herds to collect their fibers (cattle breeding was not invented yet). It was used to weave a ceremonial cloth that was warm and absorbant, quite useful in those hard times. It was called the Mam-Wow.
This caused the extinction of the mammoths.

Nice for you to feel that you are so sure of this. I'm glad that we have a thing called science which hasn't made up a totally satisfying theory yet, and therefor doesn't jump to conclusions.

I think it was a joke...mam-wow...sham-wow....
I got it!
Damn this strong weed, I read over the Mam-Wow when I replied. And the response was actually more towards rychan with whom I'd been having this debate.

>> ^cybrbeast:
>> ^ravioli:
According to a well hidden article in Wikipedia, mammoths were actually hunted for their wool. Before the advent of mass production, humans hunted down entire mammoth herds to collect their fibers (cattle breeding was not invented yet). It was used to weave a ceremonial cloth that was warm and absorbant, quite useful in those hard times. It was called the Mam-Wow.
This caused the extinction of the mammoths.

Nice for you to feel that you are so sure of this. I'm glad that we have a thing called science which hasn't made up a totally satisfying theory yet, and therefor doesn't jump to conclusions.


I think it was a joke...mam-wow...sham-wow....

I got it!

>> ^ravioli:
According to a well hidden article in Wikipedia, mammoths were actually hunted for their wool. Before the advent of mass production, humans hunted down entire mammoth herds to collect their fibers (cattle breeding was not invented yet). It was used to weave a ceremonial cloth that was warm and absorbant, quite useful in those hard times. It was called the Mam-Wow.
This caused the extinction of the mammoths.

Nice for you to feel that you are so sure of this. I'm glad that we have a thing called science which hasn't made up a totally satisfying theory yet, and therefor doesn't jump to conclusions.

According to a well hidden article in Wikipedia, mammoths were actually hunted for their wool. Before the advent of mass production, humans hunted down entire mammoth herds to collect their fibers (cattle breeding was not invented yet). It was used to weave a ceremonial cloth that was warm and absorbant, quite useful in those hard times. It was called the Mam-Wow.

This caused the extinction of the mammoths.

I was mostly referring to the northern megafauna, and mammoth in particular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth#Extinction
A definitive explanation for their mass extinction is yet to be agreed upon. About 12,000 years ago, warmer, wetter weather began to take hold. Rising sea levels swamped the coastal regions. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The Ice Age was ebbing. As their habitats disappeared, so did the bison and the mammoth.

Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. Another theory suggests that mammoths may have fallen victim to an infectious disease. A combination of climate change and hunting by humans is the most likely explanation for their extinction.
---
Exactly the point I've been making all these posts. It's just not sure yet, need more work. So you could still be right, but a real scientist would say WE JUST DON"T KNOW YET. Okay he might not shout it, but I will.

>> ^rychan:
>> ^cybrbeast:But the statement about humans killing off the megafauna is far from certain. They could have easily died out due to climate change or evolutionary pressures besides humans.
I find that scenario highly unlikely. These species had gone through scores of ice ages and warming periods, only to die exactly when the humans arrived at each continent by coincidence? At least, that's Jared Diamond's argument and I find it persuasive.


That's just correlation, a causal mechanism needs to be found. And it is unlikely that human populations were big enough to severely impact the population of these giant mammals stretched over a huge expanse. Elephant were never killed off and they mustn't be much harder to kill than mammoths.
The point is that we just don't really know exactly what was the cause. But it's not that unlikely that they were out competed by the smaller mammals that were gaining ground. That and extinction events are usually the reason why most of the branches of the evolutionary tree die out. Being really large is a good advantage in keeping isolated from the cold, but with the warming climate of the Holocene this advantage was lost. Also the trade off of being large is requiring a much larger intake of food.

The bit about the mammoth was touching. I learned a lot.

Upvote for sure. One of frontline's most striking and thoughtful series. I remember watching this mammoth thing a while back. Cant wait for their next mega-long doc.

^Thanks for the classy comment. I guess you did not read the vid description.

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
No sight of the mammoth itself (unless that greying thing was it, in which case there's about 2 seconds of footage of the mammoth at around the 5 minute mark and anything before that isn't worth watching)

Crap vid

No sight of the mammoth itself (unless that greying thing was it, in which case there's about 2 seconds of footage of the mammoth at around the 5 minute mark and anything before that isn't worth watching)

Crap vid

hmmm, interesting but what a pointlessly long video. The whole thing can be summed up thusly...

a couple of Eskimos find a perfectly preserved baby woolly mammoth. Still shot of said mammoth...the end.

See also: http://www.videosift.com/video/Perfectly-Preserved-Baby-Mammoth

I like the Sex Pistols version better:

It was on the good ship Venus
By Christ, ya shoulda seen us
The figurehead was a whore in bed
And the mast, a mammoth penis

The captain of this lugger
He was a dirty bugger
He wasn't fit to shovel shit
From one place to another

And so on and so forth.

This was filmed at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone NP. I have heard about that elk, and that his rack is worth several thousand dollars!