That was always my thought when looking at those points: "How exactly did a person throw that through the skin of an elephant?"

Into a tree? What are you talking about?

I'm guessing you can do the old trick of lying them flat and then jerking them up at the perfect moment with rope. Or as the article says, have balls of steel and let the animal charge you, planting the spear at the very last moment

Probably taunt it into running at you

He he he... >!braced!<

Goading or herding a mammoth into a pre-planted pikewall seems much more likely than a single hunter planting a spear and waiting for a charge.

Narrow or raised terrain, hunting blinds or other kinds of prepared cover could also make a more in the moment sort of plant-and-dodge tactic less likely to result in injury.

I'm not an archeologist in any way, but yeah what you said makes way more sense than what the article describes. It would be nearly suicide to wait for a big animal to charge at you and then try to pike them with a spear. There are so many safer and equally efficient ways to use a spear to kill an animal.

Just off the top of my head i can imagine lots of ways to do it. Like use 10 foot spears and herd the animal into a trench, then a bunch of guys can safely stab it from above. Or herd it into an enclosed area and then drop a bunch of heavy logs into the exit so the animal is trapped, then throw spears at it from a safe area. Etc

Also it’s unlikely people across the world all used the same hunting method.