Maori Legend of Man-Eating Birds is True 338
jerryatrix writes "Legends of the New Zealand Maori tell of giant man-eating birds. New scientific evidence proves that these birds did exist and were around the same time as humans in New Zealand. From the article, 'Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago.'"
Re:In Tune... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you may have missed the sarcastic subtext of the original post. There's a recurrent myth in the modern world, especially in technologically developed societies, that "natives" or "primitive man" or whatever somehow lived and still live "in tune" with nature or in harmony with it or whatever. They all supposedly respect the land in a way we don't, are inherently wise, spiritual, blah, blah, blah.
You are, of course, correct in pointing out that hunting species to extinction is a very natural thing to do, though it depends on how you define things. The original poster was poking fun at the myths using the terms as propagators of the myth would themselves define them. Arguing what's natural and what's not is a different issue.
More often than not, past and "primitive" societies would have exploited or would exploit nature as thoroughly as we do, anyway, were it not for limitations of populations and technology.
Re:In Tune... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are any of us native to anywhere except Africa?
Re:In Tune... (Score:5, Insightful)
past and "primitive" societies would have exploited or would exploit nature as thoroughly as we do, anyway, were it not for limitations of populations and technology.
Dead on. The only reason the buffalo was still around in huge quantities was because native americans didn't have rifles, or horses for that matter.
Native cultures were famous for "slash and burn" agriculture, possibly the most destructive farming method around that leeches all the nitrates out of the soil in just a few years, forcing the farmer to keep moving (and destroying his surrounding jungle). Crop rotation was a European invention.
One mustn't let guilty feelings about the de facto destruction of native cultures by European civilization lead us into believing that somehow these people were much better than us. They were just people. Some were good. Some were bad. Every one of them left an environmental mark on the world around them.
Re:so... (Score:4, Insightful)
You totally forgot New Zealand's only native land mammal, the bat. There's an amazing video of the native bat running, because it'd evolved to be flightless like the birds.
Haasts Eagle bones were identified in 1870 by Julius Von Haast. This thing preyed on the Moa, a 12-foot tall 500lb flightless bird. There is no question that a human would have been a much easier much more defenseless snack than a Moa. It would be unlikely that they didn't eat the occasional human.
A human much easier meal than a moa? The first humans before they knew about Haast eagle maybe, then the occasional child or woman, and then it was over for the easy meals, more likely encounter was full grown Maori males looking for a vengence and the high status of coming back in the tribe with Haast eagle beak, talons and feathers...
Imho it was the occasional human meal was what caused the extinction of Haast eagle, probably more than overhunting of the Moas: No easy meal after the first few unaware victims, and systematic destruction of nests, youngs and preying adults afterwards...just like all other predators meeting the homo sapiens and having the bad idea (well, more the natural idea not yet eradicated by darwinian evolution) of thinking "this naked monkey looks like easy meal".
And not only eat the good old homo sapiens, but also eating any of his food stock would turn a bad idea for long term survival: RIP wolves, american lions, lynx, ...: a top predator sharing territory with a sufficiently dense human population is doomed.
Re:Extinct (Score:2, Insightful)
"giant man-eating birds... a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago."
I guess it means that finally men won...
Yes, like always: big predator hunting homo sapiens means that the predator is on the fastlane to extinction....Except if it can retreat to a territory where human population is non-existent or very sparse (like polar bear for example), it is doomed....
Re:NZ pacifist warrior culture (Score:1, Insightful)
On and off from 1066 to 1745.
Re:so... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, those legends would be easily explained if "dragons" turned out to be some sort of fire-breathing dinosaur, but we're not allowed to entertain notions of dinosaurs coexisting with humans in the time-line of biological evolution.
Re:so... (Score:4, Insightful)
we're not allowed to entertain notions of dinosaurs coexisting with humans in the time-line of biological evolution.
You can entertain any notion you want. Don't expect anyone to consider your ideas anything more than entertainment until there's some evidence.
As far as the evolutionary time line, it's not a matter of "you're not allowed" so much as "there's a gap of hundreds of millions of years between the youngest known (non-bird) dinosaur fossil and the earliest known primate fossil." Call me when you find a dinosaur fossil from 100k years ago. Until then, I think I'll refrain from subscribing to your newsletter.