Oh wow very good callout and thanks for the academic (!) reference! This reminds me of the weirs used to trap fish - no surprise similar units were created on land for hunting as well
I found these fish weirs in Canada to be really interesting because of how many there were in this one area off Vancouver Island. And that they were found because most of the wood stakes came to the surface after an earthquake in 1946.
Right on, believe I read a similar article recently because am mentally placing weirs to B.C. - though they are/were certainly utilized throughout the world
Yeah, there's a similar ancient hunting strategy of building two converging fences, then driving herd animals into them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_kite From what I remember similar methods have been used by northern/arctic peoples as well.
> The buffalo jump was used for 5,500 years by the indigenous peoples of the plains to kill bison by driving them off the 11 metre (36 foot) high cliff. Before the late introduction of horses, the Blackfoot drove the bison from a grazing area in the Porcupine Hills about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west of the site to the "drive lanes", lined by hundreds of cairns, by dressing up as coyotes and wolves. These specialized "buffalo runners" were young men trained in animal behavior to guide the bison into the drive lanes.
> ...
> In Blackfoot, the name for the site is Estipah-skikikini-kots. According to legend, a young Blackfoot wanted to watch the bison plunge off the cliff from below, but was buried underneath the falling animals. He was later found dead under the pile of carcasses, where he had his head smashed in.
https://qmackie.com/2010/05/12/more-on-comox-harbour-fishtra... https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-ingenious-ancient-tec...