Endurance running is not only a pastime for modern marathoners or for sharing on social media. A new examination of the anthropological history of endurance running when hunting for game shows that it may be just as effective as other more traditional hunting methods like foraging. The findings are explained in a study published May 13 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour and supports an idea called the endurance pursuit hypothesis.
“People who frequently practice running will know that when practiced on a regular basis, running becomes relatively easy,” study co-authors and evolutionary anthropologists Eugène Morin of Trent University in Canada and Bruce Winterhalder from the University of California, Davis tell PopSci. “From this, it is easy to envision how it could have conferred a selective advantage in hunting.”
What is the endurance pursuit hypothesis?
Initially, some anthropologists believed that running long distances in pursuit of game would have been taxing to the human body and not worth the trouble. A more slow paced pursuit was believed to be the better method to both get food while preserving strength.
Endurance pursuit hypothesis suggests that the human ability to run long distances is an adaptation that began roughly two million years ago.
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“Unlike other mammals, including other primates such as chimpanzees, humans can sweat profusely and have lower limb muscles evolved for stamina rather than power,” Morin and Winterhalder say. “If economical and successful, endurance pursuits of medium-to-large game in a tropical environment could have [been] selected for that unique combination of traits: sweating and stamina.”
However, there have been few reports of contemporary humans using these endurance pursuits. Running long distances is generally viewed as energetically costly, and thus not worth it.
A game-hunting advantage
In their new study, Morin and Winterhalder studied roughly 400 recorded instances dating from the early 1500s to the early 2000s to investigate the role of endurance running while hunting. These included some first-hand accounts of different nomadic groups including the Evenki people in Siberia, the Innu in Canada, the Mbuti in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Pitjantjatjara in Australia, the Inuit in Alaska, and more. Some of these ethnographic sources revealed that hunters sometimes ran over 62 miles in one pursuit.
In addition to reviewing these accounts, the team used mathematical modeling to look at the various scenarios that could play out over a pursuit. They varied the size of the prey, how quickly or slowly a human pursued the animals (walking or running), and the distance covered.
The models found that in the right context, faster-paced endurance pursuit can increase energy returns. The models revealed that the calorific gains of endurance running were comparable to other hunting methods.
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“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,” Morin and Winterhalder say. “In short, endurance pursuits would have provided hominins with an evolutionary advantage while competing with carnivores for game.”
The research indicates that this method of hunting would have been an option for early humans during the Pleistocene era (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) and might have played a part in human development. However, Morin and Winterhalder emphasize that this study does not directly relate to the evolution of humans, as it is based on accounts from recent history.
Cultural prejudice
The team was amazed by the numerous instances of long-lasting hunts they discovered in various environments, from the freezing Canadian wilderness tundra to the more humid mountains of Hawaii. They also discovered that the study reveals a bias in anthropology.
“Apart from dedicated recreational joggers and runners, Westerners view running as ‘difficult,’ ‘expensive,’ ‘demanding,’ and so on,” Morin and Winterhalder explain. “On the other hand, our observations demonstrate that Native societies have promoted and appreciated running, for men, women and children, during races and festive events, as well as for hunting.”
Morin and Winterhalder are currently preparing another paper on endurance hunts with more detailed assessments of what might have driven hunters and what times of the year had more endurance hunts. They are also collaborating with Rebecca Bliege Bird and Doug Bird from Penn State on a study examining the division of labor in hunting.
