Michigan Mammoth May Have Been Butchered By Humans 41
Forbes reports that a mammoth recently unearthed in rural Michigan includes evidence that the animal was butchered for food: From the article: A small stone that could potentially be a cutting tool was also found with the mammoth bones. To confirm that this animal was butchered by humans, researchers will examine the bones for cut marks that would indicate people were processing it for meat. A third piece of evidence is the organized way the neck vertebrae of the mammoth were found. "An animal doesn't just come apart naturally leaving a sequence of tightly articulated vertebrae like that," Fisher said, indicating that the animal would have had to have been moved by humans for paleontologists to find the bones laid out in such a fashion.
Re:as opposed to UFOs? (Score:4, Funny)
...or detroit has just been a rough place for a very long time...
Could it be? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Chilli sauce to put on hot dogs. (Think "Coney Island".)
Re: (Score:1)
Yep. The actual secret ingredient (at least for a Flint-style coney, which is my fave) is finely ground beef heart.
BTW, nobody I know in Michigan calls the sauce "chili." If you want a chili dog, by all means have one 'cause they're tasty too, but don't confuse it with a coney dog.
Outside Michigan? Everything that claims to be a Coney dog is just a dang chili dog.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't know who modded me down for trying to be funny. Coney dogs are a staple in that neck of the woods. I love 'em. I grew up not too far from there.
Link Appears Borked (Score:3)
Re:That's just the way... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do think the woolly mammoth will eventually be created again by scientists. But I don't think it's quite as close as you'd think.
I think it should be tested on perhaps a simpler type of animal and one where there's less of a gap between generations. The passenger pigeon is a good candidate for this, in part because it might be easy to get funded and the timescale for animals to reproduce is much quicker. Of the 32 or so passenger pigeons that have had their genomes sequenced, there aren't a lot of differences. That means it might not be necessary to create huge numbers of them with large genetic diversity for them to survive. This also requires sequencing the genome of a similar animal, in this case the band-tailed pigeon. Then it's necessary to determine what genes made the passenger pigeon what it was, rather than another type of pigeon, and creating a chimera by inserting passenger pigeon genes into the band-tailed pigeon genetic sequence. Even if a passenger pigeon can be created through this process, there's still the challenge of teaching the passenger pigeon to behave like one. Simply creating an animal with similar genetic code to a passenger pigeon doesn't make it a passenger pigeon.
The same process could be done with the woolly mammoth by creating a chimera with the Asian elephant. Sequencing the genome is probably the simpler part, and that's underway. But it would be good to see the process done successfully with another animal like the passenger pigeon, which should be faster than the woolly mammoth. I'd guess it's probably 50 years away, but I think it'll eventually happen.
Sadly, I don't think another famous extinct animal, the dodo, will be so fortunate. I'm not sure there will be as good of a close relative since it evolved in isolation for a long time on Mauritius. It's also old enough and in a climate warm enough that genetic preservation is much less likely.
Re: (Score:1)
Theoretically, the egg laying critters are easier - you have an appropriately sized egg with the right mix of nutrients (a problem for dinosaurs, since we will have to guess besides the egg size problem) and all you do is replace the DNA, provided you have enough source material. I remember reading something about this quite a while ago, probably when the original Jurassic Park movie came out and they discussed the likelihood of being able to do what was in the movie.
Given where we are today, it seems lik
Re: (Score:2)
I used to see one all the time in the not-to-distant past.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
I had to (Score:2)
But seriously, that evidence is really weak. Why not wait for the analysis of cut marks? That's the really strong indicator. They wrote this way too early and rushed it out...kind of like Avatar.
Re:I had to (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Okay. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, for one, it provides evidence of human activity in that region. It's not entirely clear when humans migrated into that area, so it provides information about human migration. It also provides some information about the climate of the area because the mammoth was limited to surviving in certain habitats. Yes, it's obvious that humans hunted the woolly mammoth, but it's new for that region.
Re: (Score:2)
Even TFS doesn't say (or claim) that.
analysis of cut marks - if any - could confirm that the animal was butchered by humans. Whether it was killed by humans is a distinct question. Not unrelated, but there never has been anything to prevent opportunistic gatherers from taking advantage of a kill made by other means - including old age, falls, enmirement. (IS that a word - coffee not takeneffect yet? Stuck in mud.)
Such coincidental finds, traps or kills may have suggeste
Let me guess.. (Score:2)
One of those humans was wearing a wristwatch [wikipedia.org]
Fox News reports (Score:1)
The poor mammoth called for backups, but the State Department was too busy wiping servers.
Re: (Score:1)
With a cloth?
Besides, at this point, what difference does it make?
Re: Fox News reports (Score:1)
It is "hctaw s'yelaP" argument. (Score:3)
In this case the scientists are arguing the way the components of a natural are disassembled the way they are disarticulated shows the evidence of human hand. This is the reverse of Paley's watch, it is hctaw s'yelaP.
Re: (Score:2)
Aboriginals destroyed teh megafauna (Score:2, Insightful)
So much evidence points to the extinctions of megafauna on several continents by man.
Meanwhile the aboriginal peoples try to push the myth that they are" safe custodians" of wildlife.
That is simply bullshit. They have had zero regards for anything other than their own greed.
And yet, somehow, we still allow illegal hunting and fishing by people, because it is "their heritage".