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2024-11-11

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The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/15901115

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

persistence hunting was one of the main hunting strategies during a large portion of human evolution before ranged weapons were invented

How do ranged weapons invalidate persistence hunting?

If you're trying to chase down an animal till it's exhausted, I think you'd want to be throwing stuff at it to injure or at least to keep it moving.

Also, was there a time before ranged weapons? As soon as humans have weapons we have ranged weapons because we can throw. Atlatls and slings - tools to help you throw sticks and stones - wouldn't have been developed if we weren't already throwing sticks and stones at things.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How do ranged weapons invalidate persistence hunting?

Even with a modern bow it's still really difficult to sneak close enough to a deer to reliably make a kill shot. You're not going to sneak close enough to poke it with a spear and with game that size, throwing rocks is not really an option either because that wont kill it. Something like axis deer is quick enough to even dodge a modern arrow.

The reality is that the animal will notice you and it will out-sprint you as well but it wont outrun a human on a long distance. When the animal is exhausted and no more able to run, then you can then stick your spear in it.