<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380538362_Ethnography_and_ethnohistory_support_the_efficiency_of_hunting_through_endurance_running_in_humans>

Ethnography and ethnohistory support
the efficiency of hunting through
endurance running in humans

Abstract
Humans have two features rare in mammals:
our locomotor muscles are dominated by
fatigue-resistant-fibres and we effectively
dissipate through sweating the metabolic heat
generated through prolonged, elevated
activity. A promising evolutionary
explanation of these features is the
endurance pursuit (EP) hypothesis, which
argues that both traits evolved to
facilitate running down game by persistence.
However, this hypothesis has faced two
challenges: running is energetically costly
and accounts of EPs among late twentieth
century foragers are rare. While both
observations appear to suggest that EPs
would be ineffective, we use foraging
theory to demonstrate that EPs can be quite
effcient. We likewise analyse an
ethnohistoric and ethnographic database of
nearly 400 EP cases representing 272
globally distributed locations. We provide
estimates for return rates of EPs and argue
that these are comparable to other
pre-modern hunting methods in specified
contexts. EP hunting as a method of food
procurement would have probably been
available and attractive to
Plio/Pleistocene hominins.

"However, despite our poor sprinting
abilities, humans are highly adept at
slower-paced endurance running over long
distances, with some athletes
accomplishing the feat of running daily
marathons (42.195km) over one or more
months."

"Humans can dissipate heat more quickly
than most other species because we can
sweat copiously - up o 3.7 l h^1 in
marathon runners, earning us the label,
‘sweaty ape’. The effectiveness of
cooling by sweat evaporation is enhanced
by our high density of eccrine glands-ten
times that of chimpanzees-and our
diminutive, unpigmented vellus body
hair."

"...humans can take more than one breath
per stride and have more flexible
breathing patterns than quadrupeds
whose locomotor and respiratory cycles
are strictly coupled while trotting or
galloping, thus posing severe limits on
their thermoregulation."

"Our search through ethnohistorical and
ethnographic sources (see Methods) yielded
a database of 391 hunt descriptions
consistent with an EP tactic..."

"EP hunts are not limited to open
environments as suggested by earlier
analyses based on much smaller ethnographic
samples. Fully 156 descriptions (39.9% of
Supplementary Data 1) derive from groups
occupying forest biomes, including habitats
such as taiga and rainforests. To an almost
equal degree, EP hunts are associated with
open settings (n=164, 41.9%), but more
rarely, with biomes of mixed or intermediate
vegetation (n=71, 18.2%)."

"EP hunts may involve one or more pursuers,
with individuals cooperating in tracking or
acting in relays."

"Our data suggest that prey can be driven
into hyperthermia even in moderate weather.
This seems particularly true for deer (by
far the most common species in our dataset),
a panting animal with an inefficient system
of heat dissipation."


See also

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-021-09526-6

Deconstructing Hunting Returns: Can We
Reconstruct and Predict Payoffs from
Pursuing Prey?

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