Hunting Hypothesis Essay

It is clear at this point that early hominids actively hunted early in their emergence and hunting has altered the way in which social interactions developed. The hunting hypothesis became widely supported to explain the origin of bipedalism or to interpret early human adaptation to savannas and the early archaeological record. Apparent confirmation of the hunting hypothesis came with archaeological evidence demonstrating that predation had always been a part of human society. Though with that being said there was a time when there was more than one early hominid that actively hunted. Why is it that we were the only species to survive?
Speculation on the topic arose in the scientific community quite some time ago. Popular area focused on this topic was the effect of Spear use by Eurasian Neanderthals and early modern humans. Neanderthals are commonly known for roaming the earth during the same time as Upper Paleolithic modern humans. Due to the extinction of Neanderthals and our continued progression an important argument is the difference in predatory capabilities between the two hominids. Both actively used spears during their hunting exploits, however there is a lack of evidence for spear throwing amongst …show more content…
Even more amazing is that there are also studies that emphasize how hunting has shaped how we learn and peak mentally in life. Skill acquisition is an important aspect of human intelligence and it is possible that hunting help mold human life history, characteristics such as large brains, long life spans, and extended juvenile periods. The hominid shift into a skill-intensive foraging niche where elevated returns are realized later in life should select for increases in brain size, provided larger brains facilitate increased capacity for learning and mortality rates sufficiently low to allow for returns in skill investment (Walker et al.