| 10, 6, 10 & 13.1 Thanks for giving me an excuse to look at the evidence behind persistence hunting speculation once again. "… the main hunter, armed only with a digging stick, identified the fresh hoof prints of a duiker and followed its trail at a steady, relentless walk for approximately three hours. The duiker was thereby pushed from one uncommon shade tree to the next in the hot sun. The bare ground beneath each shade tree was pock-marked with duiker tracks from many different animals, which slowed the hunter, who circled the perimeter of the shaded areas and was able to pick out the tracks of the targeted duiker as it left the location. Toward the end of the hunt, when the tiring duiker was sighted for the first time approximately 250 m ahead, it was running at a right angle to the direction the hunter was walking along its recent trail. Rather than changing direction and walking or running directly toward the fleeing animal or making any effort to maintain visual contact with it, the hunter continued along the hoof-print trail. At the end, the duiker was standing, incapacitated, beneath a small cluster of trees, with its head lowered and tongue hanging out. The hunter walked up to it, clubbed it with the digging stick, and then carried it back to camp. In sum, successful persistence hunting by walking requires truly phenomenal tracking skills, with the added risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion even for the physically fit. On days following a walking hunt, Kua hunters typically spent a recuperative day of inactivity in camp." https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-ma... |