Brouhaha in academia: Did we really hunt mammoths?

The debate rages in academic circles over whether early humans hunted mammoths and other megafauna for sustenance. Ran Barkai and Miki Ben-Dor from Tel Aviv University argue that targeting big animals, especially elephants, played a crucial role in the trajectory of human evolution. Their research suggests that early humans were primarily focused on big animals, particularly elephants, to obtain high-quality fat, which provided more calories than lean meat from smaller animals like hares.

The authors maintain that the decline of large animals over time forced early humans to adapt their hunting techniques to smaller prey. However, critics, including anthropologist Eugene Morin and Douglas Bird, argue that the evidence for megafauna hunting isn't strong enough. They contend that the cost of hunting large animals would outweigh the benefits and that other explanations, such as dietary flexibility, are more plausible.

The dispute has been ongoing for decades, with recent papers by Barkai and Ben-Dor and their rebuttal of critics fueling the controversy. Despite the disagreement, both sides agree that early humans did hunt and consume mammoths and other megafauna, but the frequency and significance of this practice remain a topic of heated debate in the academic world.