Big Game Hunting

Roughly 12,000 years ago, prehistoric mammals roamed the North American horizon. These mammals ranged from prehistoric camels, to lions, woolly mammoths, bison, armadillos, mastodons, and many other large and small animals known as mega-fauna. The origin of the North American Mega-fauna are still in debate, but it is surmised that most arrived via the Bering land bridge or beringia in Alaska. The arrival of the mega-fauna had a deep impact on the ecological scheme of North America, which impacted it's later human occupants. Roughly around the same time the mega-fauna was appearing in America, modern homo-sapiens (human beings) also arrived. The question of why and how human populations first arrived within the America's is not wholly known, though one strongly supported hypothesis suggests that human's arrived and survived the journey over beringia by gathering plants and following/hunting the mega-fauna.

The arrival of human beings did not gravely impact the growing landscape of North America at first, nor were the first American's great hunters, gatherers, or agriculturalists. The first hunting tools and methods were crude, consisting of simple projectile point weapons, and very little specialization. Indeed, tools such as throwing spears were usually made of heavy wood, and could not be thrown more than ten to twenty feet. To add to the problems of survival for the first American's, the harsh North American climate was not conducive to settlement by humans. Because of the harsh conditions the first American's made some major innovations in tools, which have been found all throughout archeological sites, as far south as South America, and as far north to Greenland. Big Game hunting was essential to the survival of the first Americans.

The Big Game Hunters, had many ways of hunting large mega-fauna and gradually modified many tools to do so. Among one of the popular techniques to hunt with, was to encircle a herd of Mastodons or other animals, and drive them off of a cliff, or into a large thick swamp where they would be shot with poison darts, projectile points, or large stones. These two techniques have been evidenced by large bone remains and deposits at many archeological sites. In addition, the tools used by the big game hunters changed over time. Tools such as atalatls increased the throwing distance and momentum of a spear thrower, bow and arrow techniques, as well as innovations in the design and weight of projectile points also aided in hunting efforts. In particular the use and finding of projectile points tells many things about the hunting efforts and traditions of the North American peoples. A gradual evolution in tools can be seen by looking at the arrow head and projectile points used by a people.

Among the many projectile points found are three common types in prehistory known as Clovis, Folsum, and Scottsbluff. These projectile points are indicative of a tool making tradition, in that they occurred and were common within different phases of paleo-history. Most of the projectile points mentioned above were found throughout the Americas. The oldest of these projectile points is the Clovis point (see picture), the Clovis point was longer than many other stone tools used in hunting and was used from roughly 12,000 years BP (Before Present) to 11,000 BP. The Folsum point came next and was used from roughly 11,000 to 8,000 BP. The Folsum was a lighter weight projectile point and aided in the efficiency of hunting. Later, the Scottsbluff point was introduced, it was introduced in roughly 8,500 BP, and used finer flaking techniques in it's creation. The gradual evolution of tool making as well as hunting tools and traditions however was not a linear progression, as there are found hundreds of differing prehistoric tool making traditions through out the Americas. The effectiveness of the tool making traditions of the Americas are well documented in the bone deposits and hunting sites through out the area. Among many of these sites, horse, mammoth, beaver, sloth, bison, woolly mammoth, mastodon, and saber toothed tiger can be found in just one site. Even the North American native horse was driven to extinction by the North American Hunters (the horse species was not reintroduced until well into the Spanish Conquest). It is of course, worthy to note, that the hunters used all parts of the animals killed. This is evidenced by houses constructed out of Whalebones, and other large animals (seen particularly in the coastal regions of Alaska, and the modern Northern Coast of California, Oregon, and Washington). In fact no part of the animal was wasted, fur was used for clothing and other items, bone was used to often construct weapons, and many times the inedible byproducts of the animal were used for other domestic uses.

The end of prehistoric big game hunting came in time with the gradual extinction of the mega-fauna itself. Due to a climate change from a glacial setting to a more modern ecology, as well as the massive hunting exploits of the early Americans, the mega-fauna were unable to survive. As a result of this massive extinction, smaller mammals began to occupy the ecological niche of the large mega-fauna. Rabbit, deer, and other animals began to fill the diet of the prehistoric hunters. In addition gathering exploits became essential to the survival of the North American peoples. Maize (corn), beans, squash, and other vegetable foods, well adapted to the North American environment were cultivated. However, in regions where fishing was abundant, large whaling exploits continued to and beyond the European conquest.

References:

World Prehistory Grahame Clark; Cambridge University Press 1969

The Early Mesoamerican Village Kent Flannery; Academic Press 1976