Re: Date limit set on first Americans

"MIB529" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Doug Weller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > >> >> > > I didn't make myself clear. Deloria himself has argued that
whites
> > >> >> > > originated in the Americas and then migrated to Europe.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> This one is in Red Earth, White Lies. I think it is in the chapter
> > >> >> where Deloria is trying to exonerate Indians from exterminating
the
> > >> >> mega-fauna, and so he postulates that there were some giant
> > >> >> white men around who did the murder and then lammed it to Europe.
> > >> >
> > >> >Funny, I've read it, and don't remember that chapter.
> > >> >
> > >> >Not that it matters. There is zero evidence Indians were responsible
> > >> >for the extinction, most paleontologists think it's bull, and with
> > >> >Clovis no longer first, the theory falls apart. I'm still wondering
> > >> >why Indians would hunt the big game first, rather than the small
> > >> >animals. Oh, wait! I forgot! Anthropologists think Indians have the
> > >> >intelligence of a mollusk.
> > >>
> > >> Don't be an idiot.
> > >
> > >As soon as you stop being one, I will.
> >
> > Look, oh anonymous one, you know that what you said about
anthropologists
> > isn't true.
>
> Let's see: Entering a colder environment during an Ice Age. Sounds
> like the intelligence of a mollusk to me. (Nothing with a brain is
> that stupid. I would've said hydra or sponge, but they're sessile and
> thus we can't test if they're that stupid.)
>
> > >> Hunting the small game, of course, could have driven some big game to
> > >> extinction.
> > >
> > >There are still small game around. And some of those big game were
> > >herbivores.
> >
> > True, but I did say 'could have' and 'some big game'.
> >
> > >Here's a possibility: Warmer temperatures select for a higher surface
> > >area/volume ratio. Mammoths, dire wolves, and other Pleistocene
> > >species didn't have that ratio.
> >
> > There could be more than one reason and that could be one of them.
>
> "Man did it" is just a way of saying "We don't know" I still say small
> animals would encounter the brunt of man's selection. I take the
> absence of megafauna in Antarctica as evidence against the overkill
> theory. (Unless you want to assume the Yagan canoed to Antarctica just
> to slaughter them.)

Small animals have a very high reproductive rate and a much higher total
population. Recovery time is much less for a population decline. Most kinds
of mega fauna have low reprodution rates. Even if humans weren't the only
factor if they hunted them at all, and the evidence says they did, then the
damage they could do would be huge. Throw in a habit for setting fires for
various reasons and a lot of wildlife could be in very big trouble.