IS Persistence Hunting one of the most inefficient hunting methods in the history of mankind?

Soon they are cooked :)

I've been big game hunting my entire life-with muzzleloaders, rifles, and occasionally bow and arrow. Even with these advantages-chasing the game is rarely effective. The trick is to wait for the game to come to you-or see it some distance away and sneak up on it. I've had deer sense me from a quarter mile away. They look at me briefly-and then 30 seconds later, they're a half mile away. Chasing these animals to exhaustion is not possible for a human-I don't care if you are an Ethiopian with a 2:04 marathon PR-there's no way you can wear out a deer, elk or antelope to the point of being able to bonk it on the head with a rock. Chase it over a cliff-maybe.

I suspect the ancient method of human hunting was to quietly sit in a tree above a game trail, and bulldog the animal when it passes beneath you, and then bonk it on the head with a rock. Snares would be another technique. Running for 4 or 5 hours till the animal drops-no way.

Here ya go boss.

Persistence hunting is a myth. It is possible under rare circumstances, but anybody who believes that hominids made a living running animals to death or that running "made us human" is living in a biological vacuum.

Makes a nice story and endurance athletes really WANT to believe its true (see Born to Run). Advocates (better describes as adaptationists...see Stephen J Gould for definition of that term) cherrypick all kinds of facts to support it and their argument just becomes absurd wishful thinking.

The accounts of successful hunts are very rare. I defy any runner here to spend a month in the wilderness run down enough calories to feed yourself and your band.

Ask any serious scholar of human origins about this and they will laugh. Every fall they look out in their classes and see some some kid in vibrams five fingers with Born to Run under his shoulder and think, "here we go again..."

You are mistaken.

I have run down deer more than once. Driven them to exhaustion where they simply give up and stop. If I wanted to I could very easily have killed them with nothing more than a rock, a knife or even bare hands. They were simply too exhausted to continue or resist in any way.

You too are mistaken. See my post above. It is very doable.

For the record, I was one of the top HS runners in the US at the time but there were undoubtedly hundreds of collegians and even more post collegians who could've kicked my butt. I ran down the deer without assistance. It is quite doable, especially working in small teams.

Further, there is no need to live solely upon such kills. Roots, leaves, berries, small prey, etc. can all supplement the big game so acquired.

Well, there is a big difference between something being possible today and being a force of natural selection in human evolution.

I've run up to deer a few times as well. Two times I've come within 10 feet of a deer, but frankly this was no feat of endurance on my part. This was in nature preserve and backcountry estate territory I just figured these modern deer were so unused to predators that they just didn't know what to do.

Those kind of tame, unfit animals would quickly get weeded out if they were subject to active hunting.

Lots of very good runners have tried to run down animals and failed. There was that Running After Antelope book decades ago. I remember a pro runner (Irish sub four guy, can't recall name) trying and failing to do this in the 1980s.Then there was this story in Outside a couple of years ago about a bunch of elite runners who clicked off 4.30 miles and still couldn't get within arm's reach of antelope.

Now add another problem. When you chased after that deer you didn't have to worry about other predators. if you were a hominid in Africa 2 million years ago you sure did--hyenas, lions, leopards, etc., all of whom could run you down in seconds. Distance running does not work as an escape strategy in open savanna. You run two hours across the Kalahari without weapons and without cover in the heat of the day and the predators say, "here comes lunch!"

We can debate whether it's possible to PH. I agree it is in rare circumstances. So is swimming the English Channel. But that doesn't mean early humans did it to the point where natural selection kicked in and it reshaped the human body. Lots of people point to one film of San bushmen running down game as "proof" that this is how our ancestors behaved millions of years ago. The fact that some modern humans can do something today does not mean we evolved to do it--that is the major fallacy of Born to Run. Let's organize a race across the English channel and say oh, we're born to swim!

But the real question is did proto humans make a living this way--enough to reshape the human body? Ultimately, that is unknowable. That question cannot be tested and therefore it's not science. It's just myth.

Should be noted wrote:

I have run down deer more than once. Driven them to exhaustion where they simply give up and stop. If I wanted to I could very easily have killed them with nothing more than a rock, a knife or even bare hands. They were simply too exhausted to continue or resist in any way.

I've never done this with deer, but used to run down dogs a lot, just for the heck of it. Eventually they would get tired and lay down, completely losing any aggressiveness or defense.

I can see how this is possible with deer and other animals, probably not with an antelope that can run 30 mph for 2 hours. In that case though, you're chasing the slowest ones, not the fastest ones. The terrain makes a big difference too.

Persistence hunting is largely myth, in my opinion. I don't care how good of a runner you are. Why waste all that energy chasing an animal when you can use that large cranium we have to devise a way to snare, trap, or ambush a deer? Or stalk them when they are bedded down during the day?

Our minds made us good hunters, not our physical prowess. The idea that deer, elk etc have poor endurance just isn't true. You know what happens when you try persisten e hunting? The animal smells or hears you, then runs 2 miles in about 5 minutes up to a ridgeline, and you lose the track. It's ridiculously ineffective. I've tried it many, many times. Even with a rifle or bow it is slim odds. There may be some situations it would work (open country on a hot day, thinking something like a bison or wildebeest, but deer, elk, antelope? Gimme a break.)

1) It IS possible to run down deer/antelope/etc. A few aborigines still do it today in parts of Africa. There are videos available where this practice is documented. This is simply not open to debate. You might as well debate whether or not some people play professional baseball in the US. They do. This is a fact.

2) Predators in the middle of the day? You do not have a very good understanding of predators in the African sun. They are asleep. And people who are trying to hunt this way are very aware of the whereabouts and habits of the local predators.

3) Whether or not this type of hunting was done to a great enough extent in the distant past to help shape our evolutionary path IS debatable. You have your opinion. I do not have an opinion about this point. I simply do not know enough about it.

The pre-horse American Indians hunted buffalo by setting the prairies and meadows alight and often destroyed an entire area in the search for meat.

When maddened, snorting animals stampeded over cliffs, fell into pits or were bogged down in river bottoms, spears stuck home and flint knives bit deep and the women and children, shrieking, ran to rejoice and share in the kill.

Skinny Bastard wrote:

But the real question is did proto humans make a living this way--enough to reshape the human body? Ultimately, that is unknowable. That question cannot be tested and therefore it's not science. It's just myth.

Your comment is sheer foolishness built upon a mountain of hubris. Far, far more imposing problems have been declared "untestable' only to see clever individuals devise ways of testing them.

I tried running down a deer a couple days ago, at an easy pace you can track them indefinitely (if you're in shape) the issue is when they get into dense foliage.

Justin91 wrote:

hell yesss wrote:

From wikipedia, hunts are generally 2 to 5 hours, ranging across 16 to 22 miles. For that effort you'll kill a 400-lb antelope.

Pretty sweet trade-off.

What percentage of letsrun.com could be effectively replaced with Wikipedia?

About 3%. Wikipedia really sucks at the nasty insults.

Georgetown wrote:

You can easily find a way to kill a large animal once you have it collapsed. Find a sharp rock.

Even if you don't have a sharp rock, you can sharpen a stick and poke it with that. You can even kick it a bunch of times.

scxc wrote:

in 2005 ... reminded me to rent The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Those were the days!

When the snow comes here I could run down a dozen deer in a day.

mcflounder wrote:

Duck curser wrote:

No, extremely efficient. It allows you to bring down large prey that you wouldn't normally be able to kill very often. That's a lotta food which makes up for the effort involved.

People usually overestimate the energy expended during exercise vs basal metabolism. It may take 1000 calories to follow an animal all day, but it takes 2000 to sit around doing nothing. If you can run the animal into the ground, you might as well spend 3000 calories and get a month's supply of food, instead of 2000 calories and get nothing.

Are you going to put that month's supply of food in your refrigerator? How do you plan on getting that big meal back to your cave for the rest of your clan?

Reading these responses is hilarious.

Lol I love these type of responses: "Haha you guys are so dumb, I know everything" and then reality gets served right in their face hahaha did you really not know about preservation techniques back in the day?

We survived so it was good enough.