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Humans with spears can take on elephants. You'd probably have to go back to the invention of fire for elephants to drive humans out. Intelligence is a huge adva
by concordDance 3y ago
Humans with spears can take on elephants. You'd probably have to go back to the invention of fire for elephants to drive humans out. Intelligence is a huge advantage, humans can make walls, have pike formations, farm fields, burn down forests, etc.
- FredPret 3y agoA bull elephant is the true king of the jungle. But a lot of humans with zero self-regard could take down maybe one or two elephants at a time. Perhaps an ancient Roman legion with a ballista - and balls of steel - could do some damage. But you can only stop a herd of elephants that work together with modern technology. The only early walls that can stop elephants would would be castle walls and thicker, and those are major projects that you'd have to undertake while getting tusked and stomped. Maybe ditches would work better, or caltrops.
- hattmall 3y agoIs digging a trench modern technology?
- kabouseng 3y agoWell I am pretty sure elephants were used as mounts of war, and they were not unstoppable for opposing armies. Terrifying yes, but not an auto win.
- marginalia_nu 3y agoIIRC they saw initial success but saw diminishing returns as it was figured out that they scare quite easily by fire, loud noises, pike formations, etc. If you manage to panic an elephant still in the enemy lines it can do quite some damage to their troops.
- AmericanChopper 3y agoHannibal did terrify Rome with them for a while, but Scipio Africanus figured out a very simple strategy to defeat them, which won the second Punic war for Rome at the battle of Zama. He just made corridors in his formation and channeled the elephants down them, which then ran away scared from the battle all together.
- FredPret 3y agoThose were Indian elephants, not the much larger and more aggressive African, and they were used in small numbers - 20 or so. The main defence was to scare them or to lure them into a bad position. I'm envisioning all elephants working together with discipline and coordination which would make it nearly impossible to stop them.
- User23 3y agoMammoths were exterminated with stone age technology.
- CharlieDigital 3y ago> exterminated Were they? Or was it a consequence of changing climate from the Ice Age?
- addled 3y agoOr did loss of megafauna contribute to the change in climate? Fun project trying to test the direction of causality: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park
- User23 3y agoAfrican elephants contribute greatly to deforestation. They enjoy knocking trees down for some reason[1]. And there's no doubt that deforestation can effect local climate change. [1] https://www.krugerpark.co.za/kruger-park-news-study-shows-elephants-role-in-tree-losses-25594.html https://www.krugerpark.co.za/kruger-park-news-study-shows-el...
- jjk166 3y agoYeah, but they've been doing so for millions of years without any measurable effect upon global climate.
- User23 3y agoYou sure about that? Most likely they are having an extremely measurable effect, it's just the effect is maintaining the status quo. Do you really think that the climate in Africa wouldn't change if forests were permitted to grow? Remember that climate is a complex dynamical process full of feedback loops. If anything, given the size of the landmass, allowing the savannahs to become dense forest would be a huge source of carbon capture. Also I deny the premise that all climate change is bad prima facie, although again because complex dynamical system it can be impossible to predict the eventual outcomes. Nevertheless, a climate change like greening the Sahara could at least potentially be a net positive for humanity.
- azernik 3y agoWe don't need to speculate. Roman legions frequently encountered elephantry and absolutely trounced them. The Romans then adopted war elephants briefly, before dropping them as totally impractical. https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part-ii-elephants-against-wolves/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/02/collections-war-elephants-part...
- FredPret 3y agoColour me impressed with the legionnaires. But remember that we're speculating about large herds of disciplined elephants working together.