h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or rowing across the bogs. Those antlers are really something!

Yeah! I had to really study them to be able to paint them ... I hope they came out right, but I think they're close. I do wonder just what the old moose actually did with them! It wasn't a very snowy sort of place and time where it lived.

But didn't you mention that those critters lived in areas inhabited by modern mooses (meese?)? I assuemd that that meant at least some cold weather.

Well when I think of lots of snow I think of tundra regions and reindeer ... moose, and these, I associate more with woodlands and marshes. These might get snow but I don't think so much that they would need to be able to shovel it away with their horns to get to their food, the way woolly mammoths likely did...

I was thinking about human uses of the antlers. Humans can be pretty inventive about using whatever they find.

You know what Paulh there was a whole big scientific theory about that originating here in South Africa. It is called the 'osteodontokeratic culture' theory. That was that human ancestors, before they made tools from stones, made tools from teeth, bones and horns of wild critters. It was Raymond Dart who came up with the theory, and he wanted to apply it to the Australopithecines, the very ape-like (but bipedal) early human ancestors. His theory was largely disproved ... likely those old almost-people did not use these things in that way. But more 'evolved' humans likely did indeed.

Thanks for that, Willem

Horn was definitely used by people in North America 200-300 years ago - Native as well as settlers. I have a horn spoon in my china cabinet that I picked up at a re-enactment. It makes lovely utensils.