Persistence hunting only worked in areas with wide open terrain, like the African or American plains. Prey in the jungle or heavily wooded areas can just disappear into the underbrush and be gone. It doesn’t matter how far you can walk at that point, because you’ll never find that animal again.
homo sapiens evolved in africa ~300k years ago, and the group who ended up populating the rest of the planet left from the eastern plains about 60k years ago. That means our ancestors lived in or around the African plains for roughly 240k years, or 80% of the time our species has existed. I’d say that qualifies as “a large part” of human evolution as the person above said.
Earlier Homo sapiens did migrate out of Africa before 60k years ago but they pretty much all died out or migrated back. So Homo sapiens thriving in environments other than plains/savannah is a fairly recent development in terms of our species’ prehistory.
You can’t keep a creature moving without rest if you have to stop to track it, and you can’t track over rock, hard soil, through water, and a variety of other terrains.
There will certainly be areas where the trail disappears, but tracking isn’t necessarily about locating every individual footfall.
With an understanding of movement and behavior, one can make inferences about where the animal went to find and follow the next sign.
Even moving over rock or packed soil, sign is left. You may not be able to perceive it yourself, but to someone who spends hours a day reading and studying the ground over the span of years, those subtle differences are perceptible.
An animal will eventually reach a place to stop and rest, but with repeated interruption that rest won’t count for much.
I will acknowledge that things that seem impossible to me are probably easy for people who engage in those activities frequently. So, you’re probably right.
Persistence hunting only worked in areas with wide open terrain, like the African or American plains. Prey in the jungle or heavily wooded areas can just disappear into the underbrush and be gone. It doesn’t matter how far you can walk at that point, because you’ll never find that animal again.
homo sapiens evolved in africa ~300k years ago, and the group who ended up populating the rest of the planet left from the eastern plains about 60k years ago. That means our ancestors lived in or around the African plains for roughly 240k years, or 80% of the time our species has existed. I’d say that qualifies as “a large part” of human evolution as the person above said.
Earlier Homo sapiens did migrate out of Africa before 60k years ago but they pretty much all died out or migrated back. So Homo sapiens thriving in environments other than plains/savannah is a fairly recent development in terms of our species’ prehistory.
Everything moving through a space leaves tracks or a trace
You can’t keep a creature moving without rest if you have to stop to track it, and you can’t track over rock, hard soil, through water, and a variety of other terrains.
There will certainly be areas where the trail disappears, but tracking isn’t necessarily about locating every individual footfall.
With an understanding of movement and behavior, one can make inferences about where the animal went to find and follow the next sign.
Even moving over rock or packed soil, sign is left. You may not be able to perceive it yourself, but to someone who spends hours a day reading and studying the ground over the span of years, those subtle differences are perceptible.
An animal will eventually reach a place to stop and rest, but with repeated interruption that rest won’t count for much.
I will acknowledge that things that seem impossible to me are probably easy for people who engage in those activities frequently. So, you’re probably right.
Persistence hunters today do track their prey, and often have to guess where the prey may have gone when the tracks are lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=826HMLoiE_o