OPINIONS

Der Veron offers his opinions and arguments about 
the mammoth and its modern descendent the elephant.

Will the Furry 
Mammoths Return?

By Der Voron

Almost all of us like and adore mammoths. But do you know that they were present on the Earth as recently as the end of 1st millennium B.C. and even in 16th century A.D., and that they should soon appear on the Earth again?

Let us give the floor to a famous Chinese historian and to a no less famous Austrian traveler. Sima Jiang, a Chinese historian who lived in 145-86 B.C., writes in one of his works about Siberia: "Of animals, there are giant boars, northern elephants covered with bristle, and northern rhinos." How do you think, what can the words "northern elephants covered with bristle" mean? Isn't it the mammoth?

Sigismund von Herberstein, an Austrian diplomat, writer, and historian (1486-1566) who often traveled to Russia and lived in this country a long time, writes in his book about Russia:

"In Siberia... there are many species of birds and animals, like, for example, sables, martens, beavers, ermines, and squirrels... Besides it, the wes."

Who is this wes? An ethnologist P. Gorodkov communicated in his essay "A travel to Salym region of Siberia" in 1911 that in the language of the Hant people (who lives in this area) "wes" means a strange animal that was covered by thick hair and had tusks.

Siberian Tatars are sure that this animal existed, and so describe it in their legends: "Mammoth, by its behavior, is a peaceful and nice animal, when it meets people it doesn't attack them but tries to fondle them." As you can see, the mammoth in their folklore is something like the bear in European folklore, and not an exotic creature.

Don't the facts above mean that we can bravely affirm with 99% certainty that the mammoth existed on the Earth at least till 1st century B.C.?

Mammoths return: century 21!

It seems we will soon be able to see and enjoy the mammoths, like did our ancestors. A group of scientists decided to clone them, and recently they found mammoth cells suitable for cloning. The mammoth is now being cloned in a female elephant's womb (substitute mother), and will hopefully be born several months later.

Are Elephants Cleverer
 Than Humans?

Almost all of us like and adore elephants. But do you know that they are cleverer than humans? As strange as it may sound, it is so, and here is why.

Elephants’ brain weighs about 11 pounds, some 3 times bigger than that of humans -- none of other land animals have such a brain, including any primates and such giants like rhinos and hippos -- and, what is more important, an elephant can creatively use objects that it didn’t see in its life before.

An example described in ancient Roman documents. An elephant recently captured in the wild and brought to Roma, was fighting with a rhino, and suddenly he saw a brush with sharp metallic rods that was lying around. The elephant immediately picked it up and, with its angles, pricked the rhino’s eyes out. After that the elephant trampled the blind and disoriented rival down.

Hence, a food for thought:

1)       As you understand, nobody taught the elephant how to use knives or other objects with acute angles, and he didn’t even see such objects in all of his life, having been captured in the wild. How did he understand how to use, not even a knife, but just a brush with angles?

2)       Would an adult savage, who never saw a knife, guess how to use it for fight (not speaking of brushes)?

Another example (also according to ancient Roman documents). Once an elephant was punished because he didn’t follow all the the trainer’s order. Next night, this elephant was observed repeating the exercises to improve his performance skills.

“Then why didn’t they create their own civilization?”, you may ask. Because of their incredible strength, which allows them to vanquish, without the need to create any artificial devices, almost any enemy, except a man armed with fire arms, and because of absence of hands. They certainly have a very strong and flexible trumpette, but it is like having one hand instead of two. What could humans do if all of them would have just one hand instead of two?

Another question that you could ask could be “OK, but now humans began mass killing of elephants with fire arms yet several decades ago; why did such intelligent elephants not begin creating devices for self-protection?” Because this process -- which started from the ability to create stone arms, went through the creation of bronze and iron (steel) arms, and finally reached what was developed by human civilization during last 5 centuries (fire arms, artillery, tanks, aircraft etc., not speaking of other ways of military actions) -– required from humans several hundred thousand years, and elephants, having suddenly met such a dangerous enemy like a man armed with fire arms, just can not be able to create own fire arms during some two hundred years. In other words, if X is two times cleverer than Y, and if Y created Z in 200,000 years this doesn’t mean that X will create Z in two hundred years. Probably in 50,000 or 100,000.

Perhaps, if humans could somehow learn the elephants’ language (i.e., the method they use for communication), then they could borrow many interesting things from these giant creatures!

Der Voron is a writer and translator. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and works as an independent contractor for a computer company. He is the author of Starcraft. His website is http://starcraft-version1.tripod.com/ and his email is dervoron@eudoramail.com.

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