[lbo-talk] Wherefore art thou, Megafauna? (human predation)

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Dec 26 10:51:43 PST 2008


On Fri, 26 Dec 2008, Chris Doss wrote:


> Question: Have any societies in recorded history had a habit of
> regularly hunting large animals at all? (not counting whaling)

Chris, there is no doubt that once homo sapiens invented the spear-thrower (kind of a jai lai stick stuck on the back to increase leverage and thus range and power) it was a superpredator in the technical sense: there was no animal it could not kill and eat. And there is also no dispute that homo sapiens regularly hunted megafauna.

When you enter recorded, i.e., written, history, you've already invented agriculture and stock raising. The calculus is different.

Michael



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