Mammoths: ultimate big game may have been victimized by something other than man
One of the more popular depictions of the mammoth's extinction is that associated with ancient hunters. Perhaps the popularity of this idea can best be traced to a series of novels by Jean Auel, one of which is called "The Mammoth Hunters."
Nothing tantalizes the imagination better than a well-crafted supporting image. The front cover of Auel's novel shows an arctic tundra-type environment, with very brown grass, an enormous glacier in the background, a number of mammoths off in the distance, and in the foreground, a group of people in heavy coats, carrying enormous spears.
It's a GREAT picture! And it probably is the number one picture we get in our heads (at least I do) when thinking of mammoths. But how plausible is the scenario that man is responsible for their extinction?
Let's begin with the "hunter" mentality. I don't think it's too out of line to think of humans getting excited about hunting game this size. In fact, if dinosaurs and humans coexisted, humans most certainly would have tried to find a way to hunt them down. The thrill of such a hunt is just part of human nature.
To illustrate this, allow me to share an experience from a few years ago. Some family friends had a loved one who was undergoing heart surgery. I had gone to sit with the family while they waited for the outcome of that surgery. It was a long operation, and I didn't have any reading material, so I borrowed some of theirs. There was just one thing; all they had to read were hunting magazines. As a result, I ended up settling in to read an article about a fellow who was very excited that he had drawn tags to hunt bighorn sheep in
If a modern-day hunter can get excited about the gorgeous horns of such a find, we can only imagine the enthusiasm of ancient hunters when they encountered the tusks of enormous mammoths and mastodons, the teeth and claws of saber-toothed tigers, or other enormous big game creatures. The combination of necessity and trophy hunting makes it a quite PLAUSIBLE scenario that many of these creatures were wiped out by overhunting.
However, there may be other factors that, we, in our day and age can't fully understand. Sometimes animal populations simply die off either due to disease or environmental conditions. We just can't always know why some species became extinct.
As an example, it was recently reported that the honeybee population has been dwindling for some time, now. The best minds from around the world are studying this phenomenon, but have been unable to isolate the exact cause. It could be that an equally nebulous reason exists for the extinction of mammoths.
Something else to consider is the connection between modern elephants and mammoths. When we compare mammoth and mastodon teeth to those of modern elephants, the indication is that mammoths and mastodons are related to the modern Asian or African varieties of elephant. However, if it was overhunting that wiped out the mammoths and mastodons, it seems reasonable that their modern relatives would not be here today either.
The overhunting hypothesis ought to have produced such a scenario, and since elephant populations aren't completely destroyed, it's reasonable to SUGGEST that perhaps overhunting isn't the ultimate cause of the mammoth's demise after all. -Chris of themuseandthescribe.com
Eskimos didn’t wipe out the whales with spears, so why should we believe that cavemen succeeded with Mammoths?
If you really want to know what happened to the Mammoths, pick up a Bible and read Genesis.
Certainly there are more questions than answers when it comes to things like mammoths. It seems more likely to me that following the flood they simply failed to propagate in sufficient number or in a sufficiently adequate environment to continue. It may be that certain animals were not brought on the ark for specific reasons beyond our knowledge, or they were allowed to become extinct early on after the flood for reasons beyond our knowledge.