Animals Of The Stone Age

during the Ice Age mastodons roamed through New York over water today some of the most well known streets of the city streets where evidence of their influence can still be found we're looking south this way and you've got Rockefeller Center to your right here and some Patrick's on the left and we're looking at these honey locust trees if you look across here you'll see a large thorn sticking out of the tree and they can grow up to like two feet long now if they're not trimmed off these things will be poking bristling out in large numbers so you'd end up with a very heavily armored tree you wouldn't want to get close to that thing experts believe that the trees evolved these protective spines thousands of years ago to guard against New York's largest Ice Age residents these marshy forests dotted with shallow lakes and ponds a perfect habitat for the American Mastodon this creature stands three meters tall at the shoulder slightly shorter than the African elephant it weighs seven and a quarter tons and wields two and a half meter long tusks but unlike their cousins the woolly mammoths these beasts prefer wetlands to the dry Prairie Massa Don's really like New York and New Jersey and Connecticut they liked the cold wet forests they were at home there and they're often found in bogs that formed around wet forests if you go further north and further west and the Ice Age it was drier more open grasslands that's where you get the woolly mammoths if you'll find the two together on occasion the Mastodon and the mammoth but they're really fundamentally different kinds of hairy monster the Mastodon has a larger skull and is more muscular than the mammoth but what really sets these two creatures apart can be found inside their mouths you go to a great fossil hall you see two Ice Age monsters that look like elephants but open their jaws which you should do and look at that teeth stick your fingers in there you have a few course mountain shaped cusps that look like a giant human molar cusp and it makes it very distinct mammoths and elephants both have very flat grinders flat surfaces much more adapted for eating grasses macedon teeth have these great lumpy cusps for crushing ranges thick branches mammoths can't do that totally different style of chilling same body plan Mastodon with human type teeth mammoths with elephant teeth fossil evidence of new york's mastodons has been unearthed in and around the city including a tusk and a jawbone and teeth found at two sites off of Broadway in Manhattan right near inward this is a tooth from the mouth of a real native New York monster if you're gonna find anything from a mastodon if it's nothing else likely be a molar because these are the most enduring parts of the skeleton but travel back again 12,000 years ago a rodent much heavier than attract plagues those hidden corners of New York the city is overrun with giant beavers called castor righties beavers are an old old family most beavers are medium-sized big 120 pounds there was a giant beaver castor itis which has a head as big as a black bear and went way up to a hundred and fifty pounds and they're here in New York cast Arroyo Dee's has an impressive tale of over half a meter long apt for one of the largest rodents ever to roam the earth the 15 centimeter incisors poking out at the front of its mouth help it to clip and chew lakeside greens and like his modern-day beaver cousins his broad teeth seem capable of cutting down trees everyone wonders did they cut down trees would any tree be safe with a beaver as big as a Buick we don't know no one has found a giant Ice Age fossilized beaver lodge not yet they could have eaten bark and vegetation without filling the trees no matter how castor oil ease uses those teeth it's not a meat-eater without to disturb I the giant beaver stays near the water where it's expert swimming skills keep it out of harm's way for almost 1 million years the monstrous short-faced bear stalked the North American continent on all fours it was 6 feet tall yet it could outrun a horse it was twice the size and much more powerful than a grizzly bear dr. Matthews lays out three bear skulls that tell a striking story what you're looking at here is a skull of the giant short-faced bear and here's a skull of a fairly good-sized grizzly bear and this is a black bear the short-faced bear would have been about 1,200 pounds this grizzly would have been about 500 600 pounds and this black bear 200 250 pounds walking on all fours a grizzly bear is about three and a half feet tall the short-faced bear was six feet tall and when it stood up this huge creature measured 11 feet even amongst other monsters it stood out short-faced bear is quite a bit larger two to three times the size of a grizzly bear we'd see today and the question always is why why such large size why did this bear evolve to be such a giant the scientists theorized that the size of this bear made it a fearless hunter able to kill very large prey unavailable to other predators one such pram was the Jefferson ground sloth an herbivore that weighed in at 2,000 pounds although slow moving its massive size was protection against smaller predators like the saber-tooth cat or dire wolf like today's elephants on the African plains the sloths massive size made it difficult to kill if a sloth was attacked by a short-faced bear it would use its best defense sheer bulk you can visualize the sloth rising up on its hind legs to make itself appear bigger and more impressive to chase off a predator the sloth outweighed the bear by more than 800 pounds but once the bear stood up they were nearly the same height I can see these two animals rearing up and you would have like a boxing match where they're both up there they're swinging at each other in terms of weaponry this bear had a pretty amazing arsenal imagine the reach of these long legs and sharp claws it would be all like a boxer standing up with a super long reach according to Greg McDonald the sloths best offense was to inflict damage with its long sharp claws the bear might be able to immobilize its prey by either slashing open their abdominal area or by crushing the sloths shoulder with his powerful bite when you think of how powerful its jaw was it would have created a lot of force that could certainly if it got ahold of an animal's limb would break it very quickly with the with the jaw muscles with his shoulder broken the sloth would be defenseless when comparing this short-faced bears gait to the grizzly calculations show that the short-faced bear was slightly faster reaching a top speed of 32 miles per hour but the grizzly could accelerate from 0 to 30 much quicker this put the short-faced bear at a huge disadvantage when it came to hunting if it was a super predator like the isotope tests showed it would have to catch prey using bursts of speed like a lion but the Bears bone structure wasn't designed for that it became clear that the bear couldn't chase down its kill because its long legs were not suited to make sharp turns at high speeds we're standing in front of a reconstruction of an adult giant short-faced spirit and the main thing that stands out are these super long legs that are also very skinny for an animal this size these bones are very grass I'll or thin their diameter is not proportioned to their length for an animal that is incurring all the dynamic stresses and strains of fast running yet we know this bear apparently caught and ate just about everything but it's long leg bones were not strong enough to handle the dynamic force of the Bears 1200 pound weight using a modern-day leg bone dr. Matthews illustrates why it couldn't maneuver in for the kill this is a tibia from a large mammal and I'm gonna demonstrate the effect of dynamic stress on it this is a five pound bag of sand and you can see that the bone is able to support the weight of that bag all on its own but watch what happens when we put the weight in motion which is the effect of an animal running so what happens with five pounds of weight ones in motion is it becomes something more like 100 pounds of weight and this bone isn't strong enough to handle that weight this simulates the effect on a bone when it slams into the ground during a high-speed chase the short-faced bear could only chase an animal like a horse in a straight line if the horse made a sharp turn in the bear followed it could break its leg so when you start to piece together bits of evidence like this you start to see a different picture of this animal what you see is an animal that's very large it's very lanky that can travel at moderate speeds for a long time dr. Matthews believes he has solved this ancient mystery the short-faced bear evolved into its massive size not for hunting but for intimidating other animals into giving up their hard-earned prey far from the ultimate predator the bear was instead the ultimate scavenger roaming vast areas in search of a free meal but what happened when the bear was late for dinner this is where the Bears short-faced came in most handy because its front teeth were so close to the fulcrum of its jaw the Bears bite could crack open bones imagine this pliers is a face like a jaw going up and down and this is the fulcrum of the lever system if you picture the anterior teeth trying to bite bone or anything else you can see that there's not very much power in that bite the anterior teeth aren't very strong I'm trying to squeeze that very hard I'm having no effect on that bone now if we put it back closer to the fulcrum we're gonna see that there's much more power in that bite the bear's short face gave its jaw the ability to crack open very large bones and access nutritious marrow cavities that contain fats lipids and extra calories there is a large collection of ten thousand year old bones that testify to the Bears skill as a scavenger this is a very large bison bone from the Pleistocene as a large male and this is the size bone that only a short face bear could have opened up it is a name that conjures up ferocity and defines the word predator Sabretooth a huge cat specialized in killing the very biggest prey immensely powerful sporting seven inch long knife sharp canines for nearly two million years this monstrous beast dominated the primal landscape of the Americas massively built Smilodon may have weighed up to 750 pounds 25 percent more than the biggest male lion and it carries some serious weaponry it's short bob tail means it was not much of a runner modern cats even big ones like lions use their long tails for balance and turning during high-speed pursuit smart I'm just didn't have that capability because of the shortness of its tail this animal obviously was doing something completely different from modern feline cat if Smilodon wasn't chasing fast running prey then it had to have been targeting slower bigger animals they would have had to use his depth to get close and then launch a short-range deadly attack and the bones bear that out saber-tooth had oversized front paws with big thumb claws which scientists believe were for the specific purpose of grappling with extra large prey it was a wrestler not a runner it was an ambush predator with really short legs and somewhat flat feet and it was designed to get a hold of its prey grapple with it and actually hold it in mobile while it was standing it ever since the first perfectly preserved saber-tooth remains were excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles in 1875 scientists have been trying to figure out exactly how Smilodon used their super-sized canines in spite of a weak bite we know they were eating big animals like bison even mammoths and sloths so presumably smiler Don's knife-like teeth were a special adaptation for killing their mega prey the modern lions much more massive skull with its powerful jaw is clearly designed to deliver a very different kind of killing bite than saber tooth's the African lion has these canine teeth that are relatively round in cross-section they're really a peg like by comparison with these knives that are coming out of the front of the jaws of this animal so the Sabres are extremely long they're very narrow from side to side they're fairly broad from front to back but these knives clearly had some limitations the Sabres were strong in the forward backward direction but relatively weak and brittle when subjected to side-to-side motion and that weakness means there were some real limits to where sabertooth could bite its victims if it got its canines caught up in the bones of struggling prey Smilodon was likely to lose a tooth I don't think an attack along the spine of the prey would have made sense for Smilodon because they had this enormous Sabres they're very delicate and risk of breakage is high for those sabre teeth if their impact something hard especially from the side so if they leap onto the back of an animal and then sink their teeth in one of their teeth at least there's likely to run into a vertebrae and it would snap a Smilodon sabre teeth were no accident of nature they lived that way for a lethal reason but weapons do not work without tactics and the smiler dogs killing techniques are still a mystery it was the largest wolf ever to walk the earth a fierce powerful and tenacious predator the dire wolf killed to survive in a savage ice age world hunting in packs the dire wolf was one of the most imposing predators on the Pleistocene landscape the packs of wolves methodically orchestrated kill after kill the wolf averaged 5 feet from nose to tail stood just over 2 feet tall and weighed up to 150 pounds in Latin it's called canis deras but it's better known as the dire wolf the name dire is fitting the name evokes a menacing predator looming on the horizon it is by far the most common species to be found at the La Brea excavations more than 3,500 individual wolves have been uncovered by comparison there are just 2,000 saber-tooth cats experts believe the large number of dire wolf bones proves they were social animals perhaps running in packs of 30 or more they also suggest the dire wolf had a special talent for survival compare 3,500 dire wolves to just 15 of their closest ice age relatives the grey wolf the dire wolf had been dominating the grey for hundreds of thousands of years when the dire wolf suddenly disappeared yet it was the gray wolf that survived the anatomy of the two species reveals why Anatomy is often destiny an Anatomy often tells the story about what actually worked for an animal for species for a long time and the anatomy of the pleistocene mammals gives us very good pictures of Pleistocene behaviors at first glance the anatomy of the two animals is nearly identical suggesting they acted much the same but when we take a closer look we find small but crucial differences between the two the most distinctive difference is the direwolf's larger jaw and teeth paleontologists believe this would have created a much stronger bite adapted to bring down the larger ice age mammals like bison and horse researchers compared other bones and discovered other important differences between the two species the humerus or upper arm bone of the direwolf for example is slightly longer but significantly thicker than that of the grey so too is the ulna or one of the two lower arm bones of the direwolf that means the direwolf was a more powerfully built animal weighing up to 70 pounds more than the grey wolf the lighter gray with bones suggests it was sleeker and probably more fleet of foot these differences are subtle but significant and likely transform these similar creatures into very different hunters it's powerful build and massive jaw and teeth indicate it feasted on the largest - prey like the mammoth or bison unfortunately for the wolf the rules of nature favour the larger species in a one-on-one encounter the short-faced bear or saber-toothed cat would overwhelm individually the direwolf was no match against a saber-tooth cat it would likely turn tail and run before take pian on but as a member of a pack it became a commanding presence and would have fought to protect its territory with its superiority of numbers the pack would have surrounded a solitary cat constantly collected from all sides they're most likely in concert and in a very threatening type of posturing way a single Smilodon can't be looking everywhere at once and even though they're all smaller than you the numbers and the proximity is probably going to suggest that there's some fighters not worth everything the cat would eventually break off the attack and search for a meal somewhere else but there was another dangerous predator who appeared on the landscape human beings these creatures had the skills not only to hunt mammoths but intelligence enough to kill almost any animal scientists are still investigating the relationship between humans and the short-faced bear dr. Eileen Johnson is the director of the Lubbock Lake landmark in Texas she's renowned for analyzing alterations to bone surfaces she's been examining some short-faced bear bones that were butchered by humans it is the only evidence we have of human bear contact I've looked at all the bear remains that we have and particularly the kinds of cut marks that are on the bone and that leads me to believe that that this was not a fresh carcass this carcass had already started to stiffen a bit which would indicate a found carcass which then indicates scavenging activities dr. Johnson feels the bear wasn't killed by humans this is the the canine from the bear but it's very worn down so this was most likely a very old bear probably died from natural causes ironically it seems the humans may have found the bear carcass and then scavenged it the hunters cut off one of the Bears long front legs and made a butchering tool out of its radius or lower arm bone dr. Johnson was able to reconstruct how the bone was broken the hunters laid it between two rocks that were like anvils then a hammer stone was used to break the bone and it delivers a very quick very focused force you get a nice impact and then the bone breaks in a very particular fashion known as a helical fracture since humans only had a few small stone tools this was an ingenious and efficient way for them to butcher the giant bear for any other large animal such as a mammoth the broken edge of the bone provided a sharp and strong cutting tool that got the job done quickly when the hunters were done butchering the discarded the bone so they didn't have to carry around a lot of heavy tools they would just make new tools at the next kill site so it would lighten their load it would limit the need to have it an extended tool kit but hunters did carry one item that was essential for survival while the Clovis point this was a stone weapon that was one of the first technologies invented by humankind it was discovered in 1932 next to a dead mammoth in Clovis New Mexico later scientists were able to carbon date the mammoth bones estimating the age of the spearhead as 13,500 years old the Clovis point was such an important hunting tool that anthropologists dubbed the prehistoric Native American culture who used it Clovis people these hunters specialized in taking down mammoths and they were very good at paleontologists discovered one site in southern Arizona where at least nine mammoths had been killed but butchering a massive mammoth carcass would attract unwanted attention from a creature used to taking any carcass it found if he smells a fresh kill he's gonna go for it there's a few funny-looking people around that's not gonna intimidate him he's gonna try to intimidate them usually by standing up and giving a display of his size but while the humans couldn't match the Bears strength they did carry a lethal weapon that could protect them from any fierce predator the atlatl dart armed with a Clovis point the atlatl was humankind's first mechanical invention it was a stick with a hook or socket that a hunter used to launch a light spear armed with a Clovis point this is a replica Clovis point it's very sharp and with a lot of power behind it it's easily going to penetrate the bear skin when thrown properly an atlatl dart traveled at a hundred miles per hour and was very accurate at close range still dr. agon broad feels it would have to be a very lucky shot the hunters would have to aim for the vital organs that offered the most vulnerable target behind the Bears rib cage where its lungs heart and liver you don't want to try hitting this animal in the head you're gonna be bear food if you do that but who would have won this fight in my opinion Clovis people were very intelligent they're using the very best tool material they've invented a spear point that is a killing machine andrew is great at dispatch him you don't want to be in direct competition with this bear because you're going to lose these are people who are trained from their youngest time they're trained with their weapons so I think that they are capable of defending themselves

Channel: G Carter

Views: 1,393,039

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Keywords: Stone Age, animal, sabretooth, dire wolf, mega bear, short faced bear, Smilodon (Organism Classification), animals, early man, Mastodon (Organism Classification), Mammoth (Organism Classification), Woolly Mammoth (Organism Classification), Castoroides (Organism Classification), giant beaver, History (Literary School Or Movement), Primary School (Fictional Organization Type), hunting

Id: gB4fPhv2jWA

Length: 28min 18sec (1698 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 29 2014