http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/04/the_kalahari_persistence_hunt.php

By all accounts humans have done this, in various forms, for thousands of years. American indians were recorded as using a variation that used a relay of hunters. By careful observation it was known which way the game would run. Which makes it possible to pre-position hunters along the route. With the deer getting weaker by the minute and hunters running at top speed but being replaced one after another the pursuit was quickly over.

Using a spear to dispatch prey is efficient and wise. Even an exhausted deer might muster a kick that could do serious damage. But I have read that hunters commonly used a knife or kept rousing the animal until it fell over dead.

Early Man also would chase animals off cliffs. Even a mammoth is easier to butcher at the bottom of a cliff. If you have cliffs. Might have been tricky in a place like Kansas.

But it would have been easier to hit an animal in the head with a rock, difficulties in doing so aside.

We take an awful lot for granted, don't we?

Sue

Good video, I bet some Nike Creatives would like to see that Video.

That's where the catapult comes in.

And for my next trick I'll show you how to read a sundial at night using a flashlight. <rimshot>

At least some mammoths appear to have been bogged down in a swamp when dispatched by early hunters. Probably many were lame, or otherwise disabled. Like many other predators, early hunters were essentially culling the herd by working as opportunistic scavengers.

Bullalo jumps are fairly common on the plains of North America, although I can't recall any specifically in Kansas. What you want is a cliff that appears unexpectedly as you are moving the herd along.

That was a great video. Thanks for the link!

Many of the segments in the video were over produced, but still very interesting..

Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump in Canada is a good example of this and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were in the area some years ago and made a detour to visit. It was very educational and well worth the time spent.

I'm also impressed by the amount of equipment the group carries. Looks like the runner had a shoulder bag, mostly empty except for a half gallon of water by my estimation, and a spear. Of the three in the group I didn't see any of them humping significantly more than that either. My impression was that I stuff more into my day pack for a lunchtime hike than all three together carried. Excepting the spears and club of course.

Very 'old school'. But I thought it was interesting and inspiring.

In my neck of the woods there are plenty stone age fall traps, mainly for elk and reindeer. About 7 feet deep, covered with some boughs, grass and moss. The trap would typically also have some kind of fence that channeled the animals into the trap.

The traps work fine by themselves (sooner or later something will fall into it), but reindeer was also chased into them by groups of hunters.