I am not knowledgeable on this but thought I heard reports of native American Indians running buffalo herds off cliffs. If so, no significant expenditure of ammunition would be needed. Honestly can't remember where I heard this. Of course, if they could do it, so could meat and fur hunters.
Peter.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
I am not knowledgeable on this but thought I heard reports of native American Indians running buffalo herds off cliffs. If so, no significant expenditure of ammunition would be needed. Honestly can't remember where I heard this. Of course, if they could do it, so could meat and fur hunters.
Peter.

ledvm, did Dr. Derr happened to research the number of cliffs available at the time

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
I am not knowledgeable on this but thought I heard reports of native American Indians running buffalo herds off cliffs. If so, no significant expenditure of ammunition would be needed. Honestly can't remember where I heard this. Of course, if they could do it, so could meat and fur hunters.
Peter.

Peter,

That was a tactic used in Pre European times prior to the introduction of the horse. It must be remembered that the Horse Indian as famed in TV and film only lasted for a few generations. The horse was introduced primarily by the Spanish in the southwest. Until feral and stolen stock moved east and north the natives were not very mobil and stayed very close to major waterways. They used the stampede over a cliff huning tactic because they couldnt catch the buffalo with out horses.
To my knowledge it was not ever used by Eupoean market hunters.

I gues we just brought up another aspect about pre-historic hunters pushing species into extiction--if their descendents couldnt catch a buffalo how did they earlier?

SSR

Peter,
The cliff thing was employed no doubt. But the bison was not hurt by that at all.

In the days of things like the cliff technique...people with modern minds just can't comprehend. If you started watching a herd go by...sometimes it would take 3 days...yes...72 constant hours for it to go by. They dwarfed the African migrations!!!

Killing a few hundred with cliffs was a drop in the ocean!

quote:

That was a tactic used in Pre European times prior to the introduction of the horse. It must be remembered that the Horse Indian as famed in TV and film only lasted for a few generations. The horse was introduced primarily by the Spanish in the southwest.

Of course, thanks for that reminder! One tends to think that this was always the case!
Peter.

It's too bad we didn't have the EPA 10,000 years ago. If we had then mammoths and all those other ice age mammals could have been listed as endangered and would still be around today, right?

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:

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If our ancestors killed them with spears and rocks, I have to believe your 500 NE will be fine.

Yeah, but what did the PH carry?
Peter.

An even bigger rock......