[arketyp]

There are some accounts of still existing tribes in southern Africa doing this. As the article also suggests, the sprints, as far as I can tell, are intermittent. The hunters occasionally slow down when they need to pay attention to the tracks, and they run when they are certain of the path, not necessarily to catch up with the animal but to keep pushing it when it has taken shelter resting. This process is repeated until the game is just too exhausted to move and becomes an easy prey. They're not running marathons.

[MadnessASAP]

Early humans must've been like some sorta unstoppable killing machine, never going particularly fast but never stopping either. Just relentlessly following their target until it was too exhausted to go on and just laid down to die.

*Not a anthropologist/archeologist/oldshitologist.

[jareklupinski]

> some sorta unstoppable killing machine, never going particularly fast but never stopping either.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/immortal-snail

[portaouflop]

Early humans were prey.

[bell-cot]

Once the early humans have half-decent spears, they become extremely-high-risk prey. Because a single deep puncture wound is very likely to kill even the largest predator.

[QuesnayJr]

I read somewhere that while homo habilis was frequently prey, that homo erectus already largely wasn't.

[lloeki]

Here's an old (14yo!) BBC Earth documentary about it:

> Human beings are a particular type of mammal. In this compelling clip, we see a tribesman runner pursue his prey through the most harsh conditions in a gruelling eight hour chase.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

8 hours of something more akin to trail running than marathon, interspersed with game tracking. I wouldn't describe the running parts as "sprinting" though.

[arketyp]

Yes, I had that one in mind, though I'm always a bit skeptic about the cinematics of BBC productions. Sprint or not, the point I should have made clearer is precisely that walking is compatible with the endurance method. Personally I don't believe we evolved to run much. Pretty much anyone even in our sedentary society can walk very long distances; the body seems much more strongly adapted to that type of locomotion.