Search results for ""Author Nicholas J. Conard""

The elephant is a much-admired animal, but it is also endangered. The ivory from its tusks has been in great demand across the centuries and throughout all cultures. What sort of material is it? How has it been used in the past and the present? And what can we do today to protect the world’s largest mammals from poachers? This lavishly illustrated volume embarks on a journey through cultural history and takes up a contemporary position. Ivory fascinates. As long as 40,000 years ago people carved mammoth tusks into artful figures and musical instruments, and it remains popular as a material to this day. Ivory polarises, because the animal’s tusks also stand for injustice and violence. The exploitation of man and nature, the threatened extinction of the elephant, poaching and organised crime are phenomena which we associate with ivory. The publication approaches the subject critically and poses the question as to our responsibility in our dealings with both animal and material.

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The first remains of European sabre-toothed cats were discovered in 2012 at Schöningen, in Lower Saxony, Germany, where mankind’s oldest wooden weapons had been found. This volume addresses the various topics surrounding the European sabre-toothed cat, including the circumstances of their extinction, comparisons to extant big cats and their relationship to past humans. Big cats, especially sabre-toothed cats, are for many people the symbol of a dangerous predator. As a result of the discovery of the first remains of European sabre-toothed cats at the approximately 300,000 year old site of Schöningen., a two-day scientific workshop was held in there in 2015, titled »The Homotherium finds from Schöningen 13II-4 and big cats of the Ice Age«. This volume is based on the lectures of this workshop and presents an overview of a topic that is crucial for human development, our coexistence with big cats.

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