Marathon effort by our ancestors to catch prey

SCIENTISTS say they have uncovered evidence that suggests hunting may have helped humans become long-distance runners millions of years ago.

New research shows endurance pursuits for prey was not as rare in hunter-gatherer societies as previously thought.

Anthropologists said they found literature that suggest slowpaced, long-distance running was seen as an efficient way to capture animals such as wildebeest, deer, antelope and bison for food.

The team said its findings, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, challenge the view that lengthy hunting pursuits would have been physically costly because of the toll it takes on the human body.

Eugene Morin, a professor in the department of anthropology at Trent University in Canada, said this belief stems from a “cultural bias” amongst Westerners who tend to see running “as arduous, costly, and challenging”.

He said: “Westerners, being more sedentary, are generally not as fit as the Natives (indigenous people who descended from the earliest inhabitants of a country), and for this reason, probably consider endurance running as more challenging than people who run frequently.”

The findings also suggest snowy or harsh winter conditions would not put off human ancestors from endurance pursuits and may have been as efficient as other methods of catching prey such as snaring or ambushing.

Documented observations from 272 locations around the world show endurance pursuits would have been a commonlyused strategy, particularly when competing with other predators, the researchers said.

Prof Morin said: “We were able to show that running, or a mix of running and walking, can be efficient, and it was a global practice by foragers prior to the modern era. Endurance pursuits would have provided hominins (humans as well as extinct ancestors and close relatives of humans) with an evolutionary advantage while competing with carnivores for game.”