Some years ago, the circus came to town and one of their elephants expired. The archeo professor got hold of the carcass and enlisted some grad students to work on butchering the beast (you will do anything for a good grade, right?). It evidently went pretty well (I was told of this by the prof later). The edges dulled rapidly, but could be resharpened quickly (if you knew what you were doing).

There are bison kill sites where the critters were butchered in great quantities (+100 or more) and if you dig carefully, you find vast quantities of retouch flakes, the result of resharpening efforts.

Still, when guns and knives were available, stone was quickly abandoned. The interest in G&K continues to this day - must be something in the water.

Years ago, I heard a presentation by a Swedish archeo who had been using stone axes. He found that they were actually pretty efficient, especially on smaller trees, but that you didn't swing them like a steel ax. You just nibbled away. A proficient woodcutter had a much harder time adjusting to the new tools than newbie grad students..

Although I am a certified geezer (81 in two !!) mastodons and mammoths were only fossils when I came along.