End of the last ice age
About 11,000 years ago, the last ice age came to an end. It was gradually getting warmer and that had consequences. More and different types of trees and shrubs began to grow. And man… was subjected to changes and adapted.
The mammoth, on the other hand, did not fare as well. By the time our reindeer hunters pass here, they are already extinct. Was it climate change or humans that wiped out the mammoth?
Task: See that giant skeleton lying in the pit? That’s a mammoth skeleton. Be sure to take a closer look! And you can build camps in the forest behind the rope course!
Climate change
About 20,000 years ago, the mammoth disappeared from our environment. For a long time it was assumed that this was a consequence of global warming. The mammoth skeleton has been used here as a reference to current climate change. But studies of the disappearance of megafauna, first at Cambridge University in Britain and more recently at Aarhus University in Denmark, suggest that the mammoth may have disappeared as a result of human hunting. In that case, the skeleton of a mammoth is a warning of the negative influence humans have on nature.
Evolution of hunting techniques
This rope construction illustrates the evolution of hunting weapons. Around 17,000 to 14,000 years ago people used the spearthrower and spear for hunting reindeer. But the following period became less cold and forests developed, where it was difficult to hunt with a spear. So man had to look for a new hunting technique and developed the bow and arrow. Whether this also meant the definitive end of the spear and the spearthrower, we don’t know for sure. Ethnographic studies of the Inuit show that they still use both hunting techniques. When they go out with the kayak, they hunt with the spear and the spearthrower. However, when hunting on land they use a bow and arrow.
Sources
Listening story
Orin: Voila: That's no mean feat, that skeleton down there in the pit. It belongs to a mammoth that used to live here. Look at those tusks. That's a bit different from the tusks of your elephants isn’t it? The mammoths here had tusks that could grow up to 4 metres long. 150 kg each. Together 300 kilograms. Have that in your mouth . That's as much as two pianos!
Orin: The mammoths that lived here were not that big, If you would cut all their hair off and file their teeth a bit shorter I think we would come out roughly to an Asian elephant. But they are extinct now. They got too hot, now that the ice age is coming to an end. They had hair that hung down to the ground, like a thick blanket.
Orin: (soundscape) But my great-grandparents hunted them a lot. Dad likes to talk about them when we sit around the fire in the evening. (Dad passionately recounting a snippet of the hunt). With a large group of men, from different tribes, they drove the mammoth forward, with torches, because they were afraid of fire. . (tension) closer and closer and the mammoth would panic. Then it would whip its head around wildly, its tusks reaching metres. Very dangerous! Because anyone who came too close would be skewered.
Orin: (heroic) But my ancestors were brave, they were daredevils (reflection) that is how Daddy tells it anyway, (Soundscape) And the mammoth would flee.... away from the fire and the shouting men. They drove him to the pit and eventually, blind with panic he would jump, jump to his death.
Orin: If such a hunt succeeded, there was meat again, lots of meat. With that, the various tribes could go for a long time. The cold would ensure that the meat stayed fresh. But those hunts also meant that there were fewer and fewer mammoths. And along with those hot summers, they eventually disappeared, became extinct. And now we hunt reindeer. Do you still have reindeer on your plains? No you don't. It has become too hot for them on your plains too.....They will have moved north.