Mammoth Dawn

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Authors: Kevin J. Anderson, Gregory Benford
Tags: Science-Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Genetic engineering
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nonfiction book, MAMMOTH: The Resurrection of an Ice Age Giant (Perseus). This popular book (which treats the original Benford “Library of Earth” paper in some detail) follows on two full-length specials recently aired by the Discovery Channel—both of which garnered record-breaking audiences. These programs followed several teams who track down preserved mammoth carcasses, from which they derive a great deal of biological information. Most prominently, in both two-hour specials and in Stone’s book, the theme is how to bring the mammoths back .
    The public is fascinated by the idea. Mammoths have a deep emotional resonance with human beings. Prehistoric man very probably hounded them to extinction, so resurrection of this exterminated species carries a quality of justice. Mammoths have a majesty and mystery greater than any existing species.
    Further, the concept of our novel intersects and dramatizes a major public controversy. Cloning itself, in any form, generates a knee-jerk resistance in many people; however, the question posed in Mammoth Dawn goes even deeper. The basic technique uses cloning in a way that disconnects it from the human cloning controversy, yet is sure to cause fireworks.
    Vehement opponents have argued against restoring any extinct species, even those that were clearly eradicated by mankind—such as the dodo and the passenger pigeon. A recent San Francisco Chronicle editorial condemned the idea, taking the position echoed by our novel’s protesters. The concept of bringing back extinct species is a facet of biotech with real emotional resonance.
    A fanciful glimpse of species resurrection has been used in Jurassic Park to the delight of many readers. Mammoth Dawn is much closer to reality and explores the issue as it will certainly occur, and soon —as a genuinely deep controversy, challenging our moral senses and our sense of wonder.
    Prologue—The Hunt
    Pleistocene Era, 10,000 B.C.— We open with an ancient mammoth hunt. A team of prehistoric hunters sets a trap, taking position in a grassy glen above a steep bluff. The hunt has already gone on for most of the day, humans showing themselves just enough that the small herd of the ever-more-skittish woolly beasts moves away toward the dead-end cliff face.
    The sky is thick with clouds, the air sharp with a bite of cold. One hunter remembers stories of when the mammoths were plentiful, when the tribe had killed entire herds and gorged themselves on the meat, leaving the carcasses to be devoured by scavengers. The primitive people had built magnificent houses out of mammoth tusks and bones and covered them with hide. But times are getting harder year after year, and mammoths are becoming difficult to find. Many of the straggler beasts in the sparse forests of the tundra are sick, dying from a disease. The tribe has been able to find the bones of many mammoths, but few live creatures. Now, the hunter scouts have found one remaining herd of healthy mammoths, and it is time for a great hunt. Perhaps the last one.
    As the mammoths are driven into the funnel of the trap, the hunters gather and consume a special psychotropic fern from pouches tied to their waists. This rare fern (like peyote) pumps them up, connects them spiritually with the mammoths. Humans depend on the mammoths, greatly revering them, as did Native Americans with the bison. Storytellers have painted pictures on cave walls, worshipping these woolly gods, who are so necessary for survival.
    The hunters set off. The whole tribe works together, women and children banging sticks and drums. Adolescents set perimeter fires to drive the mammoths forward. Then the hunters charge in with their spears.
    The mammoths stampede toward the high cliff. At the base of the bluff lie asphalt seeps, a tar pit swamp. Even if the Pleistocene hunters kill only one mammoth, they would have enough food for weeks; instead, they want to have a hunt like the old days, when the tribe could feast and celebrate

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