Carrier concluded that if our early human ancestors could chase an animal long enough, the animal would overheat and collapse with heat exhaustion, and the humans could step up and dispatch it easily.Ĭarrier’s idea was picked up and advanced by the Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman. Most four-legged mammals pant to cast off heat, which doesn’t work nearly as well when running. Carrier’s idea was based on the observation that man is one of the only mammals that cools itself by sweating. The theory that persistence hunting played a crucial part in the evolution of man was first suggested in 1984 by David Carrier, who at the time was a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. In fact, what evidence there is doesn’t support the notion that early humans acquired their meaty meals through feats of running endurance it flatly contradicts it. Related Book Review: The Unleashing of Tyrannosaurus Rexĭespite the idea’s foothold in popular culture, however, there is no hard evidence that ancient humans were persistence hunters, much less that persistence hunting shaped evolutionary traits. Knowing that, it’s not that much of a leap to expect that humans could set up shop and meet them when they came sauntering back. Game uses the same trails over and over again. Animals are like any modern human who follows habituated routes to work, the supermarket, etc. While this would equip them with the skills to follow their quarry, it would also allow them to know where they were going to be. By the time that child reached maturity, following trails on harder substrates would be second nature. A child, brought up in a primitive environment, would have no trouble tracking in soft earth. I also question whether their tracking skills were as bad as the Henry Bunn assumes. Driving prey into rivers where they can be more easily slaughtered makes sense (in fact, I know someone who hunts feral pigs that way). The calorie math of running after big game just doesn’t make sense. It would be ludicrous to expect them to waste any more energy than they had to when obtaining their food. Primitive humans were probably a lot smarter than we give them credit for. The fact this is the second link, and first article, that comes up when you google “Persistence Hunting” is a crying shame, and it’s even more of a shame that so many journal websites have quoted this erroneous article, perpetuating the idea that journalism has gone completely down the drain. The author clearly wrote this with confirmation bias, starting out with a preconceived belief and only researching (or at least presenting) information which supports his theory, information which falls apart when faced with the slightest scrutiny.įor example, the fact that the Xo, Gwi, San, !Kung, Raramuri and Indigenous Australians have all been documented to utilise persistence hunting to this day, the fact that there are three types of tracking – Simple, Systematic and Speculative – which persistence hunters can use to track animals through woodland and over solid earth, and the fact that the Bulls of foraging animals like Kudu will have the heaviest horns, meaning they are the ones that will tire fastest and as such would be targeted by early hominids – something Bunn and Pickering seem to have overlooked (or if they didn’t, they certainly didn’t address it, at least according to this article). This entire article is a joke due to its unprofessionalism and lack of any diverse research.
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