Persistence Hunting - Example

[miles]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUpo_mA5RP8

I would really like to be able to hunt in this way, but I don't know what circumstances you need. I don't know how it works in forests, and in cold climates etc..

[Nation]

thanks for the link, very fascinating!

You think someone living in the civilized world could learn that hunting technique? I think the animal would always win. You'd probably need to be taught by one those man and months of practice.

Did paleo men have the technology to carry water? If not, that hunting technique seems impossible or dangerous to attempt.

[PaleoPhil]

"Hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari use ostrich eggshell as water containers in which they puncture a hole to enable them to be used as canteens. The presence such eggshells dating from the Howiesons Poort period of the Middle Stone Age at Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa suggests canteens were used by humans at early as 60,000 BP. [http://www.pnas.org/content/107/14/6180]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canteen

Other Stone Agers carried water in soft containers made of animal bladders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterskin) or skins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bota_bag). In the Americas, gourds could also be used.

Before the fashioning of such items as eggshell canteens, megafauna were more abundant and originally had less fear of humans, so it probably wasn't necessary to persistence hunt as much and was probably easier to accomplish when used, perhaps not requiring water. Also, early humans didn't live in deserts like the current Bushmen do--they frequented prime hunting grounds like savannas with less heat and with lakes, rivers and water holes--so less water was needed.

[miles]

Well, I wouldn't be doing it in the civilised world. Just by doing that you take yourself out of it, but in the comments to that video, see this:

"I met a guy who did this with a deer in California.? He finally tackled it in a stream and bashed in the skull with a rock from the stream bed. He ate the brain and everything.
Cheaper than bullets, and you get your cardio in for the week."

I am trying to get in contact with this poster; it was only posted six days ago.

[Sitting Coyote]

You think someone living in the civilized world could learn that hunting technique? I think the animal would always win. You'd probably need to be taught by one those man and months of practice.

We can still hunt this way.  You need to be in good physical condition, and you need temperature extremes, either very hot or very cold.   Either way you push your prey to its limits, and we can perspire or layer to adapt to temperature extremes better than other animals.  You can even do this in a forest as long as the deer can't jump fences and end up on protected land, although you have to be a stellar tracker as you're often left with only compression prints and its energy trail, assuming you can see them. 

[PaleoPhil]

We can still hunt this way.  You need to be in good physical condition, and you need temperature extremes, either very hot or very cold. ... You can even do this in a forest as long as the deer can't jump fences and end up on protected land, although you have to be a stellar tracker as you're often left with only compression prints and its energy trail, assuming you can see them.  

I can see where the heat dries out the animal faster, but the Bushmen supposedly were forced to move to the desert to escape in-pressing civilization, and persistence hunting is believed to go way back. So I think you're probably right that it could be done in other environs beyond desert and tundra, with the technique modified to fit the situation.

[majormark]

Brains, anyone?

I don't think this method of hunting is even remotely smart. They could at least set up some kind of trap (fence) and lure the animal in there...

[Nation]

Brains, anyone?

I don't think this method of hunting is even remotely smart. They could at least set up some kind of trap (fence) and lure the animal in there...

You should have used your brain to realize that Miles wants to mimic that hunting technique because it's so bad ass and quite paleo, he's not looking for the most efficient way to kill an animal.

[majormark]

Well, if you view it as entertainment than it could make sense... but I still don't like it.

[tdister]

I suppose you are at least giving the animal a fighting chance that livestock don't get but it seems like a pretty poor option.

Doesn't adrenaline hurt the meat?

End it quickly with a bullet. At the least, slit it's throat after chasing it down. A rock to the skull is just ridiculous. In anything other than an actual survival situation, I'd call it criminal and would seriously question one's sanity.

[miles]

Brains, anyone?

I don't think this method of hunting is even remotely smart. They could at least set up some kind of trap (fence) and lure the animal in there...

Um, what do you think the animal is going to do if you back it in to a corner, and you have no weapon, hm..? You use your brain.. You have to let the animal think it can get away without having to risk a fight.. It will choose that option, and wear itself out.

Well, if you view it as entertainment than it could make sense... but I still don't like it.

No, it's not about entertainment, it's about not being dependent on crafted tools and weapons to survive.

We can still hunt this way.  You need to be in good physical condition, and you need temperature extremes, either very hot or very cold.   Either way you push your prey to its limits, and we can perspire or layer to adapt to temperature extremes better than other animals.  You can even do this in a forest as long as the deer can't jump fences and end up on protected land, although you have to be a stellar tracker as you're often left with only compression prints and its energy trail, assuming you can see them.  

How much do you think our bipedalism would help alone, without the extreme heat? Yeah, or if the deer runs into a fence it can't get over, and then decides to charge you(if you don't have a crafted weapon). Also, what sort of footwear do you think would be best for it in a cold environment?

[PaleoPhil]

....Doesn't adrenaline hurt the meat? ....

This is an interesting question. If that's true then one wonders how humans got along for tens of thousands of years of employing the persistence hunt (along with other techniques)? If it was seriously bad one would think they would have abandoned it early on, yet it persisted to recent times. Since learning about the long history of persistence hunting I've become more skeptical of the adrenaline problem.

I've also seen people claim that bleeding the animal is key for good taste and quality and others claim the opposite. When my father asked a chef in Paris what the secret to French coq au vin was, which my father had never been able to duplicate. The chef explained that the French don't bleed their chickens the way Americans do. I've never seen an Inuit, Chukchi or Bushman bleed an animal (though that doesn't guarantee that they don't, of course) so I wonder if this is a relatively recent innovation, speaking in broad terms that include the Stone Age?

So I'm not going to assume that either persistence hunting or bleeding is automatically necessarily bad or good. I'll keep an open mind and digest whatever info you have on them.

[Alan]

persistence hunting is a bad use of time.

there is lots of archeological evidence that most of our ancestors were not such losers; and had no problem imagineering and organizing VERY CLEVER scenarios such as lighting fires to stampede the megafauna into running over a cliff. 

Crafting tools is an actual sign of   ==being==   a hominid.  Why would you desire to hunt without any crafted tools?!?

[MaximilianKohler]

Slitting the animals' throat kills it quicker then bashing it's skull? If I had the choice I'd certainly rather be hit in head... do they have much thicker skulls or something and don't get knocked out?

This type of run down would also probably be much easier if you were eating raw meat/fat vs a normal cooked food "healthy diet".