News and ViewsThe relevance of persistence hunting to human evolution
Introduction
Based on the physiology and running performance of modern humans, Carrier (1984) suggested that endurance running to pursue prey was important in the evolution of hominins. Bramble and Lieberman (2004) provided a review of the morphological evidence suggesting that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about two million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form. Recently, I provided data based on direct observations of persistence hunting (Liebenberg, 2006). Pickering and Bunn (2007) maintained that the behavioral pattern that selected for long-distance endurance running (ER) in the genus Homo remains unclear, but that it seems likely that hunting and scavenging contributed minimally, if at all. In particular, they maintained that nothing in my data contradicts the statement that persistence hunting (PH) with ER is extremely uncommon, even among people employing sophisticated tracking skills in the most ideal ecological environment for the behavior.
Here I argue that the fact that ethnographic data on PH are rare does not imply that it was extremely uncommon. Given the context within which PH was observed, the data that we have available are consistent with the possibility that it may have been common in the past. A simple form of PH may have contributed to the evolution of ER in early Homo. In addition, sophisticated PH may have contributed to the evolution of modern human intellectual abilities.
Section snippets
Context of recent observations
The statement that “over the course of 20 years, only two of the ER hunts observed by Liebenberg were spontaneous” (Pickering and Bunn, 2007: 436) is misleading. Firstly, I should clarify the context within which I conducted my field research over the course of 20 years. As an independent researcher (with no funding), I would have liked to have witnessed more hunts, but I simply did not have the financial means to do so. Between 1985 and 1990, and between 1992 and 1997, I was unable to visit
Ethnographic context
Pickering and Bunn (2007) pointed out that persistence hunting is ethnographically quite rare. One possibility is that most anthropologists working in the Kalahari simply did not see PH even when it did happen. While the bow-and-arrow draws attention to itself, PH does not require any special weapon that would prompt an anthropologist to ask questions about it. Unless they already knew about PH, they may never have thought to ask about it, and hunters may simply never have volunteered to talk
Historical context
Extensive fencing began in Botswana in the 1950s, devastating wildlife in the central Kalahari and making it increasingly difficult to hunt (Silberbauer, 1965, Child, 1972, Owens and Owens, 1985). In 1992, !Nam!kabe told me that wildlife was not as abundant as it was in the past, and that they were struggling to hunt.
/Gwi hunters' techniques in the central Kalahari during the period 1958–1966 included bow-and-arrow, snaring, catching springhare by means of barbed probes thrust into warrens,
Ecological context
Pickering and Bunn (2007) maintained that PH was restricted to very open and very hot habitats, such as the central Kalahari, portions of the American Southwest, and the interior of Australia (Lowie, 1924, Sollas, 1924, Schapera, 1930, McCarthy, 1957, Lee, 1979, Silberbauer, 1981, Steyn, 1984). Pickering and Bunn (2007) further maintained that arid environments where ground is sparsely covered with vegetation do not characterize the habitats reconstructed for early Homo, while savanna-woodlands
Evolutionary hypothesis
Pickering and Bunn (2007) were reluctant to assign to early Homo the impressive tracking skills of the Kalahari San. On the other hand, Lieberman et al. (2007) maintained that the reasonable null hypothesis should be that early Homo had the cognitive skills necessary to track. Even among modern trackers, however, different levels of tracking can be distinguished that require fundamentally different cognitive abilities.
A simple form of PH may have first developed in easy-tracking terrain, such
Conclusion
As pointed out by Lieberman et al., 2007, Pickering and Bunn, 2007 made several flawed assumptions. Persistence hunting may have been more common before the invention of the bow-and-arrow or the domestication of dogs and horses. The apparent scarcity of ethnographic records of PH does not imply that PH was rare—it could simply be that anthropologists who were able to observe PH were rare. Over the last 50 years, hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari have experienced drastic changes, and the recent
Acknowledgements
I thank Dan Lieberman and Dave Carrier for critical readings of the paper. I also thank the late !Nam!kabe, !Nate, Karoha, /Uase, Kayate, and the late Boro//xao of Lone Tree in the central Kalahari, Botswana.
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