Homo Erectus and the Mammoth?

H. erectus lived between about two million and 400,000 years ago. (BBC)

Mammoths lived in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America between about 1.6 million years ago and 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch.

Seems that they over-lapped, right?

It sounds rather suspect, because it would hinge on whether or not homo erectus and the woolly mammoth shared the same range at the same time.

Q
What's this about a homo with a mammoth erectus? I'm going to report you guys. SO politically incorrect!

This Wikipedia article has the woolly mammoth appearing circa 150,000 YBP, which does not coincide with the date ranges Lil' Kay had for h. erectus. Note that this is the woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius, which is one of several species of the genus mammuthus, so your editorial discretion may turn on whether or not the author insists upon the woolly mammoth.

From Berkeley University:



--which further casts doubt on the notion that h. erectus would have hunted the woolly mammoth, because of the dates when each flourished.

Keep in mind, also, that hunting a mammoth, even the relatively smaller woolly mammoth would have been a complex group hunting operation. This is something else which makes me doubt that h. erectus would have hunted mammoth, never mind the woolly mammoth, which appears to have appeared after the disappearance of h. erectus.

I seem to recall an article claiming that homo erectus was more than likely more scavenger than hunter. But, don't take my word for it.

This from a Smithsonian source

The species Homo erectus is thought to have diverged from Homo ergaster populations roughly 1.6 million years ago, and then spread into Asia. It was believed that Homo erectus disappeared as other populations of archaic Homo evolved roughly 400,000 years ago. Evidently, this is not the case. Recent studies into the complicated stratigraphy of the Java Homo erectus sites have revealed some surprising information. Researchers have dated the deposits thought to contain the fossils of H. erectus near the Solo River in Java to only 50,000 years ago. This would mean that at least one population of Homo erectus in Java was a contemporary of modern humans (Homo sapiens).

So these old guys could have hunted anything.

That is interesting, McT. It leaves two questions, however. The first is whether or not the range of the woolly mammoth extended that far south, and the second is whether or not h. erectus was sufficiently sophisticated to have been capable of the cooperation necessary to hunt such an animal.

Conjecture R us. I would not assume that the discovery of remains in Java necessarily indicated that these geezers lived only in Java. Maybe they swarmed all over the place.

Thanks, all, for your info and for investigating and researching for me. You guys are da best.

If this book were about this subject, I'd be with you delving deeper. Although this was a passing reference for the sake of imagery, I would not leave information that I know to be incorrect. Since the issue is in doubt, I changed the reference from Home erectus to early humans. Home erectus is more powerful phrasing, but better safe than sorry.

BTW, I also did some digging about saber-tooth tigers, apparently a misnomer. They weren't really tigers. I changed that reference to crocodiles.

Thanks, again.