Researchers have long hypothesized that woolly mammoths were hunted to extinction in North America by humans using spears with grooved tips known as Clovis points. One anthropologist set out to test this hypothesis. Using a mechanical spear-thrower, he launched spears with Clovis points into mounds of clay—substitutes for the animal bodies. The projectiles generally penetrated only a few inches into the clay, an amount insufficient to have harmed most woolly mammoths. This led the anthropologist to conclude that hunters using spears with Clovis points likely weren’t the principal drivers of the extinction.

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