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It’s sort of like a rhinoceros, only twice the fun..Today, I want to play some “catch up” and explore some of my often “set to the wayside” subjects when the hot portion of World War III broke out in Ukraine. And the United States decided to “make it’s move” to carve up the world like one big birthday cake..This little adventure concerns a member of the megafauna that used to roam the world at about the time the humans started to gather and form societies.
In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and New Latinfauna "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant.
The most common thresholds used are weight over 46 kilograms (100 lb)[1][2][3] (i.e., having a mass comparable to or larger than a human) or over a tonne, 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb)[1][4][5] (i.e., having a mass comparable to or larger than an ox).
The first of these include many species not popularly thought of as overly large, and being the only few large animals left in a given range/area, such as white-tailed deer, Thomson's gazelle, and red kangaroo.
In practice, the most common usage encountered in academic and popular writing describes land mammals roughly larger than a human that are not (solely) domesticated.
The term is especially associated with the Pleistocene megafauna – the land animals often larger than their extant counterparts that are considered archetypical of the last ice age, such as mammoths, the majority of which in northern Eurasia, the Americas and Australia became extinct within the last forty thousand years.[6]
Among living animals, the term megafauna is most commonly used for the largest extant terrestrial mammals, which includes (but is not limited to) elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, and large bovines. Of these five categories of large herbivores, only bovines are presently found outside of Africa and southern Asia, but all the others were formerly more wide-ranging, with their ranges and populations continually shrinking and decreasing over time.
Wild equines are another example of megafauna, but their current ranges are largely restricted to the old world, specifically Africa and Asia.
Megafaunal species may be categorized according to their dietary type: megaherbivores (e.g., elephants), megacarnivores (e.g., lions), and, more rarely, megaomnivores (e.g., bears).
The megafauna is also categorized by the order of animals that it belongs to, which are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates.
-Wikipedia
This beast has long died off. No one knows why. But there are many interesting theories. Don’t you know.
Arsinoitherium
Quick Arsinoitherium Facts
Lived from the Late Eocene through the Early Oligocene Periods
Lived on the plains of North Africa
Was as long as a black rhino
Weighed more than a cow
Was an herbivore
About Arsinoitherium
Arsinoitherium is an extinct paenungulate mammal which lived approximately 35 to 30 million years ago during the Late Eocene through the Early Oligocene Periods.
It’ bones were first discovered in the early twentieth century and was named in 1902 by paleontologist Mr. Beadnell.
The name of this dinosaur means “Arsenoe’s beast.” It was given this name because it was found in Egypt near the palace of Queen Arsinoe – a queen who in this area in 305 B.C.
If you look at Arsinoitherium pictures, then you might think that this mammal looked quite like a rhinoceros with two big horns jutting out of the top of its nose. However, that isn’t really true because these mammals weren’t a direct relative of the rhino.
No, they were more closely related to elephants, sea cows and dassies than they were rhinos.
These herbivorous mammals roamed the Egyptian plains.
They had primitive teeth which were pretty well suited for handling the tough vegetation in this area at this point in time.
One of the most fascinating facts about Arsinoitherium is that is probably lived off a diet of water plants, mangroves and a variety of other plants. It probably had to eat a whole lot of plants in order to meet its nutritional and caloric needs. It might have needed to eat in excess of 150 pounds of plant material a day in order to survive.
Arsinoitherium walked on all four legs – much like a rhino – and it was approximately 10 feet long and weight around 1 Ton or 2,000 pounds. These animals were about 5’9” tall at the shoulders – which means they were as tall as the average human man.
That’s pretty big.
The horns on its nose probably had very little to do with defending itself from predators. Instead, they were probably cosmetic and used to attract females during mating season. Paleontologists believe that is had very little use beyond mating.
You do know that women are always attracted to pairs of large predominant horns. Ah, don’t you know.
Some paleontologists have speculated that this mammal had to be in or near water all of the time in order to prevent from drying out. Much like a modern-day hippo.
Other paleontologists don’t believe that was the case at all, however. Until further evidence is produced, well, I suppose we’ll never know.
I hope that you enjoyed this little post about the lovely two horned beast. Now you have something to talk about at the pub, the beer hall, or over dinner with your family.
No it’s not like television. It’s horrible, and nasty, and the rivers do actually flow red with blood.
I am fascinated by stories of the Mongol invasions and the stories of Genghis Khan. These excursions of empire relive the horror and nightmares of a time long ago, and well forgotten. They happened thousands of years ago, and no one can image the carnage and the horrors inflicted upon the citizenry who suffered through those invasions. All we can do is dig up some bones and try to interpret what it must have been like.
And while World War I and II were horrific, they were NOTHING like the in-your-face and up-close personal horror that the Mongol invasions were.
I argue that we need to be constantly reminded that war, real winner-take-all war, is a very ugly and nasty business. And it should be kept fore-front in our minds. Because every four generations or so, humanity forgets and resets itself in some kind of glorious bloodbath. A bloodbath with few survivors.
Someone should remind the American neocons of this fact.
Because I am constantly reminded of the stories (from this time period) where a city would send out 20,000 well equipped knights in shiny pristine armor to confront 500,000 aggressive, fierce, and battle-trained mongols on the field of battle.
It was always a slaughter.
It never went well. For them, and for their defenseless families back behind the massive city walls; walls that soon fell…
The following article is from the Vintage News. It is titled “Mass Family Graves Found in Russia a Grim Reminder of Mongol Invasions”. It was written on Sep 21, 2019 by Ian Harvey. All credit to the author. It was reformatted for this venue, but for the most part very little editing was required.
Mass Family Graves Found in Russia a Grim Reminder of Mongol Invasions
Many people feel we are witnessing grim times these days. But at least there are no Mongol invasions on horseback coming from the mysterious steppes of Central Asia like back in the 13th century.
What with civil wars, hurricanes, and other disasters, man-made or natural, dominating headlines around the world. Sometimes it seems we are living in a particularly violent time as social media carries bad news at an instantaneous speed with humanity’s inhumanity seeming to have no bounds.
But examining any period in history reminds us that, in relative terms at least, we are living in a more or less peaceful time.
Overall, with the exception of localized wars in various countries, we are enjoying global peace. At least we are not mired in world wars, as our forefathers were in the early and mid-20th century.
A Russian archaeological excavation is finding out just how violent and inhumane invasions could be.
Like, for example, the graves of three generations of one family recently uncovered in Yaroslavl, Russia.
Yaroslavl on a map of Russia.
Several burial pits have been found, and one of them contained a tangle of 15 bodies.
Researchers, upon examining these remains, realized they were looking at the skeletons of three generations of one family – a grandmother, a mother, and her son.
(Investigations identified their demise.) They were slaughtered by Mongol invaders in the area in the 13th century.
The remains of one entire family; three generations all slaughtered after torturing during the Mongolian invasion(s).
The Mongols invaded Russia in 1238, under the leadership of Batu Khan, grandson of the notorious leader Genghis Khan.
The Mongol invasions of Russia. Once they invaded, they destroyed everything. Then they remade it in their image… culturally, economically, and (yes) biologically as well (no women were spared).
Asya Engovatova, a researcher with the Institute of Archaeology in Russia notes that the remains have indications of gruesome torture, including piercings and severe cuts and blows, giving the picture not only of the fall of a whole city, but the sad ending of one family.
The discovered remains all buried and unearthed for study. It is a horrible and tragic way to die.
Historians have known for some time that Yaroslavl fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century.
However, the level of violence inflicted upon civilians has not been as well known, or understood, until the last decade or so.
The city’s Assumption Cathedral was razed in 1937, but mass graves were not found beneath it until 2005; the graves contained the remains of more than 300 people.
This latest discovery is just more evidence of the brutality the town suffered.
Skulls from the mass grave in Yaroslavl show signs of extreme violence.
Engovatova stated,
“What we now know about those raids suggests that chronicle descriptions of ‘a city drowned in blood’ were not merely a figure of speech.”
Science is uncovering the grim reality about how this city fell to its invaders, and it is an ugly reminder of just how lawless and cruel those invaders were.
She continued,
“Batu Khan’s conquest of Russia was the greatest national tragedy, surpassing any other event in cruelty and destruction. It is not by chance that it is among the few events that made its way into the Russian folklore.”
Every child understands stories of the “boogeyman” and tales about dark forces that hide under the bed or in a closet.
Russia, perhaps more so than other nations in this respect, has good reason for dark tales about bad spirits; after all, historians estimate that over the course of its two-centuries long rule, the Mongol Empire invasions killed as many as one million civilians across Europe.
And while historical texts indicate that most people submitted to their rule without argument, this new evidence suggests that many atrocities were committed during their conquests.
This family, for example, recently uncovered: researchers say the bodies were first merely chucked into the snow. (After a spell during the Spring thaw…) They were buried for health reasons, finally, and likely because of the stench.
Evidence suggests that the Mongols sacked the city in the dead of winter. The people were pulled out of their warm homes and thrust into the brutal Russian winter where they were killed and left to rot in the snow.
And so, while it is easy to get carried away about the troubles facing our modern world, we must remember that, by and large, these days civility reigns supreme, at least in most countries.
What happened in Russia during that 13th century invasion puts the world’s current troubles into some kind of perspective.
Commentary
This is horrific, but there’s more. There are other digs and other discoveries of others who have also died during this sequence of events. It’s not just one of two families. It’s an entire regions of cities, towns, and culture. No one was spared. No one survived.
Researchers Uncover Horrors Of Russian ‘City Drowned In Blood’ By The Mongols In 1238″
More than 300 bodies were buried across nine death pits of 15 people each. One contained three generations of one family.
An archeologist examines the remains at the Yaroslavl massacre site.
When the Mongols invaded the Russian town of
Yaroslavl in 1238, almost nobody was spared. Hundreds were slaughtered
brutally and dumped into mass graves as the town was completely sacked.
Nearly 800 years later, researchers have given us a chilling glimpse of
the victims left behind.
After the slaughter, Mongol raiders buried the dead in pits by the dozens with no markers to distinguish who these poor victims even were, wrote LiveScience.
But one pit of the dead in particular stood out after scientists of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology began genetically analyzing three of its 15 corpses.
Researchers found that the three murdered townsfolk buried together in the dirt were a woman, her daughter, and her grandson. Moscow’s research team found that the eldest of the three corpses was at least 55 years old before she died.
Her daughter was between 30 and 40, while her grandson was younger than 20.
The young girls and women were missing. As were all the men.
One could imagine that the men were killed trying to repel the invaders.
As for the women, we can only speculate. If there is a son younger than 20, were are his 20-something sisters?
They were buried in one of nine pits found at Yaroslavl, which altogether held more than 300 bodies.
The biological relation between three of the bodies found at Yaroslavl first became apparent after researchers noticed similar features on the skulls. All three family members also showed signs of spina bifida, which is hereditary.
As for Yaroslavl as a whole, Mongols led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan destroyed the town not long after advancing into Russia. Nonetheless, enough buildings and artifacts survived to tell us a little something about the area, namely that it was a wealthy one.
Paintings can only give us a small flavor of what it must have been like to approach your conquers and to beg to be killed swiftly.
Scientists determined this by noting the tooth decay present in the three bodies in question and noting that the honey and sugar that could cause this were only available to those with substantial means at the time.
Beyond the three generations of one family left slaughtered in a pit,
the scene at Yaroslavl showed just how brutal its conquest was. Batu
Khan invaded towns like Yaroslavl with utter indifference, ultimately
taking more than a dozen places in present-day Russia.
In just five years, he wiped out seven percent of Russia’s
population. When the Russian Grand Prince refused to submit to the
Mongols, Genghis Khan’s grandson simply burned the capital city to the
ground — with the royal family and every inhabitant inside.
Nearly 300 bodies were buried across nine pits. The son, mother, and grandmother were buried in a pit of 15 people.
For Asya Engovatova, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology
at the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of the Yaroslavl excavation,
the evidence uncovered there clarifies why the story of its conquest
became common knowledge among Russians.
“Batu Khan’s conquest was the greatest national tragedy, surpassing
any other event in cruelty and destruction,” she said. “It is not by
chance that it is among the few such events that made its way into the
Russian folklore.”
The brutality that has made the conquest of Yaroslavl unforgettable
for many Russians was certainly on display in the way the victims’
bodies were treated after death.
Genrikh Semiradsky, ‘Alexander Nevsky in the Horde’. 1876. The Russian Museum.
Prior analysis suggested that the three family members, for example,
were buried in February 1238. But recent evidence in the form of
preserved maggots in their remains indicated otherwise. In fact, new
evidence shows that the bodies were probably decomposing in the open air
for months before they were buried.
“These people were killed, and their bodies remained lying in the snow for a fairly long time. In April or May, flies started to multiply on the remains, and in late May or early June, they were buried in a pit on the homestead, which is where they probably had lived.”
Fittingly, Engovatova described Yaroslavl after the attack as a “city drowned in blood.” The skeletons of the three family members as well as the remains of the other victims — including punctured, broken, and burned bones in the hundreds of buried bodies — certainly suggest that to be true.
Conclusion
We, as Americans, picture war from the lens of the television screen. We picture sleek state-of-the-art jet aircraft (or drones) firing high-technology missiles into mud huts, and an occasional Toyota pickup truck. We imagine well equipped soldiers with kelvar armored vests over their desert camo clothing. We see them firing assault guns and wearing high-technology wrap around black sunglasses.
We watch the news reports on Facebook and Google up some pictures on the Internet. Then we go through the drive through and get a number #3 with a large Coke at Burger King.
That’s not war.
That’s a police action by proxy being observed by disinterested spectators.
The most anyone is going to do is type up a snide comment in the comment section.
That is not war.
American soldiers in Afghanistan.
War, real war, is a deeply personal matter.
You and your family can lose everything, and very few people escape it without having family members killed, homes and livelihoods destroyed and your culture and society thrown into the dustbin.
War is not like a Hollywood Zombie movie. It is ugly and nasty. Everything is destroyed. Entire buildings burned up into charcoal and all vehicles inoperable. Stores looted, and women forced to choose between rape or death. When you are not picking the maggots off of a dead cat, you are trying to stop throwing up blood from your lungs. Real war is a nasty, nasty business. It is up front and personal. DO NOT BRING IT TO AMERICA.
The neocons of America are living a Hollywood constructed fairy tale. I warn everyone that you should not play around thinking that everyone else shares your views. They do not, and they are only getting pissed. Take heed.
America is not viewed as a white knight in shining armor. It is viewed as a corrupt bully that is completely out of control and needs a good slap-down.
Americans are just like those poor slobs in Russia that believed that their knights in shining armor would protect them. That those high city walls, and long-standing history of literature and culture somehow made them special. It didn’t. They were killed without mercy.
I hope that you found this post to be of interest. I have other posts in my SHTF Index here…
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