Range of annual Elephant migrations, anyone?

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi -

A little thought experiment, and inquiry for data here.

After learning that elephants could swim, I wonder about early man nearly symbiotic relation with them. Would the Rhine River would have presented no obstacle to Mammoth or Mastodon?

Exactly how many kilometers would elephants range in an annual migration? I presume these migrations were generally south-north/winter-summer and back in the Northern Hemisphere, and the reverse in the Southern Hemisphere?

If the annual migration paths shifted with climate changes, then you might have an explanation for the dispersal of homo.

Is there an optimal time when man could have attacked elephant predators? (Please excuse me not using "probiscidonts"?; I fear the typos will be fatal )  While the predators were attacking? Go after the pride while the hunters are on the hunt? Attack while they are digesting their elephant meals?

While in modern Africa we see ground attacks by cats, but in forest environments don't the cats prefer to drop from trees? Could they have been attacked while treed?

In the center of North America we have several major salt licks, just several hundred miles away from where I am now, and several possible routes between them.  It seems to me the environments for early man which need to be modeled need to describe probiscidont environment.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all -

"In the center of North America we have several major salt licks, just several hundred miles away from where I am now, and several possible routes between them."

Bison followed one route in the mid continent, but I don't know their swimming ability. It ran from Big Bone Lick south of Cincinatti over to Louisville, where they forded the Ohio River. From there they went to just south of Vincennes, where they forded the Wabash River. From there they went to the salt licks at Shawneetown, and from there their annual migration split, with one route heading to Kaskaskia, another heading north to Goshen then to Bufallo Grove and points north. Clovis is found all along this route.

Jaguar hunted the bison along this route in contact times.

In the east the bison route went up the Shenandoah Valley from salt lick to salt lick, and again Clovis is found all along this route as well.

I don't know if mammoth accompanied the bison, or if bos primigeneris accompanied elephantidie in Europe and Asia. Do wildebeast or some other similar ruminant accompany elephant in Africa today?

Mammoth apparently also swam the Ohio River and headed directly north from Big Bone Lick, but only a few Clovis points have been found along this route. It was not used later by bison.

The eastern bison were hunted to early extinction in colonial times, as I understand it. The mid continental bison died in a hard winter in 1799-1800, but there was hunting as well.

And of course, most of the mammoth in North America appear to have died ca. 10,900 BCE, along with the horses.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all -

I spent a part of last weekend trying to sort this out further in the field.

While bison went extinct for the most part in 1799-1800, the last one was killed 1806.
I have no idea if bison were immune from European cattle diseases, but I suspect not.

French were formally at Vincennes from 1731 on, but bison information along with nearly all other ethnographic information has not been extracted from their records, if it exists and if they survive.

The ford seems to have run from Vincennes to Mount Carmel, about 15 miles along the Wabash. Depth about 4 foot. There  have been no massive finds of drowned animals, and the Wabash has shifted course many times.

There were two mammoth teeth recovered down at New Harmony, further south near the junction of the Wabash and Ohio, but still no large amount of mammoth finds by the salt springs of the Saline River. Mammoth would not have been confined to the ford.

Any major Native American centers at the junction of the White and Wabash appear to have been lost entirely. These exist at the headwaters, so they must have been there further down, but they are lost.

General occupation was dense, with low ridges later used for villages, high ridges for burials.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all -

Spent more time in the "empty quarter" of Indiana this weekend. Spoke with a buffalo farmer, and learned that:
1) Eastern woodland bison survived in Canada, and that's what he raises.
2) Buffalo can jump 6 to 7 feet over obstacles, and move at 25-35 miles per hour regularly,
3) Buffalo can swim(?!)  This may explain the lack of carcasses at the river fords.
But apparently since they used the fords, buffalo don't like to swim.
4) Male buffalo are attracted to European cows in heat.
5) Cattle diseases will transfer - which may go a long way to explaining why the North American herds disappeared.

While archaic was present at Newport and some kind of woodland was present at the junctions of the Vermillion and the Little Vermillion with the Wabash, both on the west side, no large earth structures seem to have been on the east bank of the Wabash in this stretch.

There seems to have been deliberately cleared grasslands (pastures) on the east side of the Wabash at the time of European contact.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

 

[E.P. Grondine]

"Bison did not enter Indiana until the protohistoric
period (Tankersley 1986, 1992:105), at the
beginning of the Little Ice Age (ca. AD 1650), and
so were not available to the prehistoric populations
of central Indiana."

I don't think this accords with the data from Big Bone lick, but I will check that again.

In any case, this does not accord with the De Soto account, if that route has been accurately located.

I observed microliths at the Wabash-Ohio junction. Usually these are associated in the ANE with food grass cultivation. Their function in this area is not clear.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi all

I visited Big Bone Lick this Monday. At the interstate visitor center I watched the desk clerk tell a visitor that there were no Indians in Kentucky, but that it had only been a hunting ground.

The nature center at Big Bone Lick was closed, but the gift shop was open. Apparently the folks in Kentucky never thought to combine the two.

Following Kentucky's sterling academic tradition, Nebraska had been the last to excavate the site. The dates:

http://inside.msj.edu/academics/faculty/davisr/bigbone/fauna.htm

In other words bison long before 1630 CE.

The site itself was in poor shape, and could be better run. Some of the native american materials were close to insulting. Apparently no one has thought to look for  a nearby fresh water spring for habitation sites.

Lest I leave you with a bad impression of all Kentuckians, I also spoke with a Long Hunter from Mt Carmel during the weekend,  and I learned that a buffulo trail also ran along 133 (?) north south from Blue Lick, and that parts of the trace survive.  My guess is that  folsom followed it as well.

[E.P. Grondine]

Continuing -

I learned last week that eastern North American jaguars had light grey fur with red markings. This goes a long way towards explaining why the Shawnee of the Ohio referred to comets as "great jaguars" (misi piase, and other variant spellings).

These cats were about the size of a 7-10 years old boy and could jump into a tree from 30 feet away. Their preferred method of hunt was solo,  to crawl along on the ground or to stalk and then pounce. In the leap they were remarkably fast.

To my knowledge, they are extinct. If anyone knows different, please share.