----- Original Message ----- From: Amadeus Schmidt > Cordain mentioned the megafauna of northern latitudes. > Northern latitudes weren't reached by anatomical modern humans > before 40000 years ago. Remains of Humans dated at 1,700,000 years old have been found in Turkey. At the time this was part of the steppe tundra which was a wet grassland that covered much of what is considered southern regions today. > The glacials (ic age cold phases) were particularly very dry. Except for the steppe-tundra where because of the effect of the icemass had high levels of rain and snow that accumulated because of permafrost that formed numerous shallow ponds during the warm summers. These conditions produced far higher densities of large animals than found anywhere else on Earth - then or now. > If they saw a sabbertooth tiger, a lion, a horse (or hipparion), a wholly > rhinoceros , mammouth, bison, these small creatures with nothing more than a > stick and a stone.... > They will have done what *you* would do in the situation. Run. I'm from Texas - I don't run;). Even pigmies kill elephants with their little sharp sticks. Pre-Pleistocene Hominids such as Lucy would never have hunted Megafauna. When Man became megafauna he got much larger as did his game. > To some strange reason this traits [Neanderthal] were not successfull on the long run > and died out, leaving the room for us. They had no dogs and could not compete with those of us who did. Ray Audette Author "NeanderThin" http://www.neanderthin.com