4 ms·
1. I thought Vice declared bankruptcy? 2. This appears to be a wall. Why do we think this is an animal pen? Usually, you would build walls to keep out other peo
by acyou 3y ago
1. I thought Vice declared bankruptcy?
2. This appears to be a wall. Why do we think this is an animal pen? Usually, you would build walls to keep out other people.
I suspect the Neolithic people were more than capable of hunting and catching game without these structures.
- heavyset_go 3y agoThey filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will be/were sold to creditors. Looks like it's going to exist in some form and not be liquidated.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoIt's not thought to be an animal pen, it's a killing funnel for wild game. They certainly would have been capable of hunting without these and even done so regularly. These were for large scale killings of herds when the conditions were right. Similar structures called buffalo jumps and buffalo pounds are known from the Great Plains. As for how we know they're not walls, that's easy: they're not tall enough. As someone who's excavated enough stone walls, it takes a much bigger pile than that to build human-scale walls, and far more if you want them to have any sort of defensive capability.
- singularity2001 3y agoWhile correct, it is an interesting thought of whether pens might have arisen through (earlier) kites by omitting or postponing the kill step in these traps.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoKites are much more sophisticated than pens and they're not relying on the same principles to work. A pen is just a physical obstacle to prevent animals from getting out. These rely on the animal's herd-following and avoidance instincts, as well as how poor eyesight, panic and misdirection. They wouldn't work very well at containing leisurely grazing animals, but they're also much cheaper to build. Also worth noting that you don't actually need to pen animals to domesticate them. It has a lot of advantages (e.g. separating them from predators), but it's not required and may even be disadvantageous if you're a (semi-)nomadic pastoralist.
- dalbasal 3y agoThis is true. I suspect that they also had people stand on the walls at key points to deter wall jumping escapes. That said... given appropriate materials (eg flexible wooden rods for hurdles and fences)... Pens within the kite seems pretty possible. Idk if they had a reason to pen animals... but even giving yourself more time to process meat might be reason enough. Some US "buffalo jump" sites and accounts suggest a lot of waste. Processing a bison is a lot of work. If you want 20 people to turn 50 camels into dried/salted/processed meat efficiently... you need a few days. Meanwhile... a handful of kids standing on walls could probably contain a herd in of these kites for a few days, even if it couldn't contain the herd without supervision. Also... They had ropes and such.
- taneq 3y ago“What if kill … later?”
- dalbasal 3y agoWell... Look into it. A headline and a single photo aren't really enough to base a theory on. These have been studied a lot recently. Go see why researchers came to these conclusions.