Ancient bison done in by climate, not hunters. Conclusion of study already drawing fire. (update)

San Francsico Chronicle ^ | Nov. 26, 2004 | David Perlman

[FairOpinion]

Thousands of years before white and Indian hunters drove the buffalo of America's Great Plains to virtual extinction, the ancestors of those lordly animals suffered a similar fate -- but it was major climate change, not hunting, that did them in, says an international research team.

Now researchers from five nations say the decline of the ancestral bison -- which lived in a region that now comprises northeastern Siberia, Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories, a region scientists call Beringia -- began more than 23,000 years before the first wave of humans is believed to have migrated from Siberia to Alaska.

[FairOpinion]

The human not only weren't around to hunt them, but weren't around to be blamed for the climate change either...

Some are very unhappy, that they can't blame it all on humans.

[Dallas59]

It's being rejected because there is no reference to Bush, SUVs or the Kyoto treaty.

[blam]

GGG Ping.

"The human not only weren't around to hunt them, but weren't around to be blamed for the climate change either... "

I believe that humans were in the Americas at that time...I've never thought they caused these extinctions.

[FreedomCalls]

If there is a consensus that hunting did them in then there is no need for anymore government grants to academia to study the problem. But ... if the consensus is that it was climate change that did them in then there will be a need for many more government grants to universities to study the problem, its effects, consequences for future species, ways to mitigate the problem currently, etc.

Follow the money.

[concretebob]

Thousands of years before white and Indian hunters drove the buffalo of America's Great Plains to virtual extinction...
Ok here's the first mistake...It wasn't the Indians who did this it was the white hunters who shot buffalo for the hide, not the meat. Indains had a very spiritual relationship with the buffalo. They only took what they needed.

[concretebob]

Geez these people are so stoopid...
Indians have been in North America for 10,000 years or better.
The Hopis have verbal histories that date back farther than any civilization in history. These people are MORONS.

[concretebob]

The problem is, these so-called scientists refuse to acknowledge previous civilizations.
They insist that human life began in some tidal pool somewhere, with an amoeba.

[concretebob]

OK maybe MORON is too strong..non-believers..un-believers..

[clee1]

No... "Moron" was accurate.

Just because one is educated, it doesn't mean that they are intellegent.

[concretebob]

Thanks for clearing that up..:)

[concretebob]

Beringia?? Is that a combination of Bering and Virginia?

[clee1]

Anytime FRiend. Glad to be of some small assistance. ;)

[Unassuaged]

Maybe a few thousand years later, but there is evidence that most of the large mammals on this continent disappeared about the time humans came over.
Not to diminish or excuse the actions of the white settlers...

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Emissions from those damn sport utility Canestoga wagons.

[LS]

Utterly and totally wrong. There are two good studies, if you are interested, in the truth: one by an anthropologist and one by a historian of the Indians.

Andrew Isenberg's "The Destruction of the Bison" and Shepard Krech "The Ecological Indian" both blow this notion of the Indian out of the water. Indians a) killed for sport as much as for food; b) were depopulating the bison to extinction (just not as fast as the whites, but every bit as surely); c) thought---at least many tribes---that the bison were limitless becuase the "gods" sent them; and d) did NOT "use all of the buffalo" that they killed. They used EVERY PART of SOME buffalo, but it is a total myth that they used what they killed.

Trappers, settlers, missionaries all observed vast herds dead and rotting as a result of INDIAN hunts, not white hunters.

It is equally true that whites were far more effective and deadly, and did in a couple of decades what would have taken the Indians several decades to do---however, it was the WHITES who realized that the bison were going extinct, and, long before government got involved, PRIVATE farmers and ranchers began to collect and protect small herds of bison, saving them from extinction. Indeed, Yellowstone bought its herd from PRIVATE sources!!

Don't buy the myth that the Indians were "eco-friendly." It's not true.

[SunkenCiv]

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The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History 1750-1920 by Andrew C. Isenberg, ed by Donald Worster, ed by Alfred W. Crosby	The Ecological Indian: Myth and History by Shepard Krech

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, FairOpinion.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[LexBaird]

They only took what they needed.

PC B.S. They took as many as their primitive stone-age hunting techniques could get them. Up to and including setting the prairie on fire to drive whole herds off of cliffs. Whereupon there would be much rejoicing and gorging.