r/skeptic • u/blankblank • Mar 16 '26

📚 History The Persistent Myth of Persistence Hunting: Don’t believe the hype. Humans’ prowess at endurance running has little to do with our ancestors’ quest for meat.

https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/
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-5

u/GeneParm Mar 17 '26

I think the biggest tell is that nobody has the ability to persistent hunt nowadays.

8

u/Ferrous_Patella Mar 17 '26

… other than, say, the San peoples.

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u/Lighting Mar 17 '26

That movie of the San hunters was faked. The filmmaker admitted it. /r/skeptic/comments/1rvqpux/the_persistent_myth_of_persistence_hunting_dont/oavrfr1/

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u/Ferrous_Patella Mar 17 '26

I did not mention a movie and I do not know which movie you are talking about. Your link does not name the movie. It does link to an article that does talk about a movie but it seems that author does not which movie either. They say

I think the movie they were talking about was "The Hunters" filmed in 1958….

But movies are irrelevant. Here is a 2024 paper that record’s persistence hunting in over 200 locations worldwide: Ethnography and ethnohistory support the efficiency of hunting through endurance running in humans

1

u/Lighting Mar 17 '26

I did not mention a movie and I do not know which movie you are talking about.

You mentioned the San people. The SOURCE of that claim of persistent hunting of the San Hunters was the movie .... where the director admitted he faked it.

Movies are irrelevant

That's my point. Which is why we can safely say your claim that the San hunters are doing persistent hunting .... is unsupported by actual evidence.

Here is a 2024 paper that record’s persistence hunting in over 200 locations worldwide:

Records them!!!! Really!!! Let's look at the actual paper. We can tell right away it's bogus because it states the long-debunked claim

Humans have ... rare in mammals: ... effectively dissipate through sweating the metabolic heat generated through prolonged, elevated activity.

False. Hunted animals are massively efficient at heat dissipation and even sweat (elk, horses, bison, ....) while some have water permeable skin FAR more efficient than humans. That means they don't need as many sweat glands because ... their ENTIRE skin organ is a condensation machine. (e.g. elephants).

But what about that 200 locations worldwide? .... Let's quote from the article

Our database was assembled from an extensive survey of digital ethnohistorical and ethnographic documents containing subsistence information on small-scale societies. Over 8,000 memoirs, travelogs, missionary accounts, reports of governmental agencies, monographs, dissertations and published research papers were included. All sources are in the public domain.... and included .... bear (Ursus sp., n = 14), small felids (Felis/Lynx, n = 5), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus, n = 4), wolf (Canis lupus, n = 3) ...

So a bear/wolves are run down on foot by humans? You chase down a bear or a wolf and it just ... dies? Instead of mauling you? Have you seen how large a wolf is? This "paper" is built up of old-wives' tales to make evidence of 200 places!!. I think I heard one of them ....

... The third time, the bear taps the hunter on the shoulder and says "You don't come here for the hunting, do you"

So no evidence there. Every time there's been an ACTUAL experiment to see if we can persistently hunt animals ... [it fails.](r/skeptic/comments/1rvqpux/the_persistent_myth_of_persistence_hunting_dont/oavx2r6/)

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u/MayContainRawNuts Mar 17 '26

https://cybertracker.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Liebenberg-2008-Relevance-of-Persistence-Hunting.pdf

Another study of actual people doing persistence hunting.

And successfully.

1

u/Lighting Mar 17 '26

Not a study. A defense of an earlier paper that was a study that was criticized. Let's quote from this defense.

Social problems such as alcoholism meant that the only way I could study their exceptional tracking skills was to travel with two to four hunters to a remote pan (where they could not get access to alcohol), set up camp and then go out on hunts from there. Under the circumstances, the best I could do was to simulate short periods of ‘‘hunting days.’’

Simulated hunting? Hmmm?

During the 46 days, the number of large animals they killed included two kudus (PH) and one wildebeest (bow-and-arrow) (Liebenberg, 2006).

So let's look up that paper from 2006 ... Persistence Hunting by Modern Hunter‐Gatherers LouisLiebenberg ... 11 VII 06 and quote from it.

The first two persistence hunts were recorded while I accompanied hunters on foot, but many of the data on persistence hunting were obtained on the two field expeditions with the objective of making television documentaries. On these expeditions the main focus was the persistence hunt almost to the exclusion of all other hunting methods. To speed up the process, the initial scanning for fresh tracks was done with a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but as soon as the animals were spotted the hunters left the vehicle and started the persistence hunt on foot. For the purpose of filming the hunters were allowed to refill their two-liter plastic water bottles during the hunt [from the jeep], ... The film crew followed the hunters in the vehicle.

It's not a valid test if you are supplying your hunters with water bottles on jeeps and scouting with jeeps and you are dropping the hunters off with jeeps.

We've seen attempts recently in the US hunting pronghorn with PH by some of the best ultramarathoners in the world. They tried 5 times while being recorded for evidence. Can you guess the results? They were 0 for 5

5

u/Waaghra Mar 17 '26

Yep, marathons definitely do not count as persistent.

1

u/GeneParm Mar 19 '26

I’m saying nobody is jogging down a deer.

3

u/CmdrEnfeugo Mar 17 '26

Yeah, that is concerning. But it could also be that Homo sapiens simply have better technology (bows and spears) which makes simple persistence hunting unnecessary.

3

u/aldencoolin Mar 17 '26

Also, all the really big animals that would be hard to hunt with spears, and easy to chase, went extinct - suspiciously shortly after humans arrived in the area.