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+1 on that.

Especially since the lemmings were arctic lemmings, collected by schoolkids in Northern Manitoba, and the 'cliff' was south of Calgary , Alberta.

head smashed in lemming jump?

What is interesting about your analogy is that there is solid evidence (if you really desire the actual studies I could find them given some time) that the hunters in a group did not provide the majority of the caloric intake of a group.

That really depends on where you're talking about. For a particularly entertaining example, I suggest you visit Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada. Yes, there is really a place with that name; I've been to the interpretive visitor centre there (the whole experience was a bit surreal). At various points in time, various native peoples lived near Head-Smashed-In, and got much of their food by driving herds of buffalo off a cliff (the name comes from the story of a guy who stood at the bottom of the cliff when a particularly large herd went off the top). They would then butcher dozens or even hundreds of buffalo, cure the meat, and live on it for quite a while. Elsewhere in Canada (coastal British Columbia), natives fished for salmon, which they smoked or cured, and which did comprise a large part of their diet. Hunting and fishing become practical ways of getting food as soon as you figure out a way to safely store the meat.

To start the hunt, "Buffalo Runners", young men trained in animal behavior would entice the herd to follow them by imitating the bleating of a lost calf. As the buffalo moved closer to the drive lanes the hunters would circle behind and upwind of the herd and scare the animals by shouting and waving robes. As the buffalo stampeded towards the edge of the cliff, the animals in front would try to stop but the sheer weight of the herd pressing from behind would force the buffalo over the cliff.

-Buffalo hunting

Although you don't have to visit there, make sure you give the people at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump a call while you're going through Alberta. The area is neat in a National Park kinda way, but it's great to have someone answer the phone with "Head smashed in, how may I help you?".

Plus you might learn something new about Native Americans.

This though, is such a far cry from managing to wipe out an entire species, that I would think you were trolling me.

Stampeding them over a cliff works nice, if they are a super villain, you are James Bond, and you have a helicopter waiting to pull you safely away on a rope ladder. Unfortunately, mammoths have neither sinister mustaches nor an enviroment with a surplus of convenient cliffs. It doesn't work.

If someone disagrees with one of your assertions, and their reply contains a hyperlink that they think backs up their point, that is worth paying attention to.

You see, your browser, that is the program you use to access web-pages, lets you slide your mouse over the link, and you can actually visit the page they referenced!

I am really going to recommend you really should try it sometime. You see, if you check the link, you can save yourself from posting something that makes you look lazy or foolish.

As to your point that the hunters could hardly move the cliffs to their hunt? Of course they couldn't. But they could move the hunt to the cliff. Lots of herd animals engage in mass migrations. Locate one of the locations on the migration route where the animals are vulnerable. You don't think stone age hunters could figure this out? It is not rocket science.

Here is a link to a line drawing showing the cliffs and the "drive lanes" where Native Americans slaughtered Buffalo. I didn't find it on the site, but IIRC thousands or tens of thousands of buffalo were believed to have been killed here over the long period of time Native American occupied this site.

West of the cliff lies a large drainage basin 40 square km in extent. This is a natural grazing area with plenty of water and mixed grass which remains fresh well into the fall. This natural grazing area attracted herds of buffalo late into the fall.

Drive lanes: Long lines of stone cairns were built to help the hunters direct the buffalo to the cliff kill site. Thousands of these small piles of stones can still be seen marking the drive lanes that extend more than fourteen kilometers into the gathering basin. These cairns may have served as simple markers, or they may have supported sticks or brush to hide the hunters.

To start the hunt, "Buffalo Runners" young men trained in animal behavior would entice the herd to follow them by imitating the bleating of a lost calf. As the buffalo moved closer to the drive lanes the hunters would circle behind and upwind of the herd and scare the animals by shouting and waving robes. As the buffalo stampeded towards the edge of the cliff, the animals in front would try to stop but the sheer weight of the herd pressing from behind would force the buffalo over the cliff.

I don't claim to know what killed them, and I certainly won't defend humanity when it's perfectly clear we're willing to cause extinction...

FWIW I too would never claim to know what killed them. I do believe that it is likely that foolish humans did play key roles in hunting at least some of the megafauna to extinction.

... but your theory smacks of some kind of arrogance, almost hubris. I mean, we're so nifty, only we can wipe out species? You'll have to do better than that.

Maybe you mistook me for someone else?

Ever try to hunt elephants with rifles and jeeps? You're still likely, to this day to end up as elephant toe jam, rather than proud hunter who has slain the mighty land mammal.

No, I have never done any big game hunting. Have you?

But stone age hunters won't be worrying about being sporting.

Stampeding the herd with a grass fire might let them single out the weaker or younger individuals. Or perhaps they could stampede them over a cliff. Native Americans did precisely this, prior to the introduction of the horse back to North America.

For some time I've been working on a contingency plan for the event that I might end up unemployed.
A major part of it is this trip - just under 6500 miles covering many places I've been before, or would love to go to.
I estimate it would take about 3 months to do properly, so that I could enjoy everything I could without having to rush through it.

I figure camping along the coast of Lake Superior by Wawa would be a great start.
I've spent many a week off in the summer camping there, and never run out of things to see. [Pictures/Writeup of a recent trip].

After that, it would be a westward run along highway 1 accross the canadian shield towards Clagary, Banff, and Jasper.

I probably would dip towards the south as I approached Calgary, to pass through Fort Macleod so that I could visit the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump again, before I lingered for a couple of weeks around Banff and Jasper.
I have only been in this area twice, once about 9 years ago as part of the last long road trip I took with my parents, and last year with a friend [Pictures]. The Banff and Jasper parks are amazing. The Icefields Parkway is Breathtaking. I could probably spend every summer out here for the rest of my life, and never get bored or stop discovering new things.

When it was finally time to move on, I would push on to the west coast, and gradually wander southward along the coast from Vancouver, to Los Angeles.
I intend to try out a small chunk of this part of the run in July, taking a week to drive between Los Angeles and SanFrancisco (and back) with my brother.

After this, everything gets vague. I could swing south, and see Mesa Verde for the first time since middle school, take the central route and revisit Dinosaur National Monument, or swing to the north and rexperience the solitude of the badlands. I probably wouldn't decide until I reached LA.