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Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

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Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#11

Post by myshpa »

gerdesj wrote: post #10

"But one may well ask: Why did humans become smarter all of a sudden? What was the advantage of having a large brain ... To hunt small elusive animals humans had to become smarter, faster, more focused, more observant, and more collaborative." So why didn't the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks 'n that etc become ... "smarter" for the same reasons? "Just so" stories are…

> the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks

None of them are able to make all their prey go extinct.

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#12

Post by andsoitis »

gerdesj wrote: post #10

"But one may well ask: Why did humans become smarter all of a sudden? What was the advantage of having a large brain ... To hunt small elusive animals humans had to become smarter, faster, more focused, more observant, and more collaborative." So why didn't the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks 'n that etc become ... "smarter" for the same reasons? "Just so" stories are…

> But one may well ask: Why did humans become smarter all of a sudden? What was the advantage of having a large brain ... To hunt small elusive animals humans had to become smarter, faster, more focused, more observant, and more collaborative."

Couple of armchair thoughts:

- it wasn’t “sudden”

- we didn’t become smart in order to do x. Instead, natural selection favored certain variation in the context of the environment and we happen to have certain mutations and environments

- symbolic reasoning

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#13

Post by njharman »

myshpa wrote: post #2

> A new study from the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University found that the extinction of large prey, upon which human nutrition had been based ... We ate them all. https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammal-decline A global population half the size of London contributed to many of the world’s largest mammals to extinction. The per capita impact of our hunter-gatherer ancestors was huge. ... Trace the footstep…

See also sixth mass extinction event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#14

Post by MichaelZuo »

distortionfield wrote: post #3

> “Ultimately, we hypothesized that prey size had played a major part in human evolution: at the beginning the largest animals were hunted, and when these were gone humans went on to the next in size, and so on. Finally, when hunting was no longer energetically viable, humans began to domesticate animals and plants. That's how the agricultural revolution began." I had never considered this angle before. I always thou…

Early cities were pretty undesirable places to live, so it makes sense,

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#15

Post by Detrytus »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #14
distortionfield wrote: post #3

> “Ultimately, we hypothesized that prey size had played a major part in human evolution: at the beginning the largest animals were hunted, and when these were gone humans went on to the next in size, and so on. Finally, when hunting was no longer energetically viable, humans began to domesticate animals and plants. That's how the agricultural revolution began." I had never considered this angle before. I always thou…

Early cities were pretty undesirable places to live, so it makes sense,

Modern cities are no different.

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#16

Post by Detrytus »

myshpa wrote: post #11
gerdesj wrote: post #10

"But one may well ask: Why did humans become smarter all of a sudden? What was the advantage of having a large brain ... To hunt small elusive animals humans had to become smarter, faster, more focused, more observant, and more collaborative." So why didn't the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks 'n that etc become ... "smarter" for the same reasons? "Just so" stories are…

> the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks None of them are able to make all their prey go extinct.

Back to "origins of intelligence", I'm not sure what's the cause and what is the effect here.

The reason why humans are different from other animals is that our intelligence makes us adaptable. Take a lion, or a spider, or a hawk and the whole species exhibits basically the same behavior, which is based on instinct. If you saw one of them then you've kind of seen them all. Humans can change their behavior, develop new tools, new hunting methods, which is why we've been able to make some of our prey go extinct.

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#17

Post by myshpa »

Detrytus wrote: post #16
myshpa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the big cats, larger insects, dogs/wolves, crocs n that, let alone bloody great 'awks None of them are able to make all their prey go extinct.

Back to "origins of intelligence", I'm not sure what's the cause and what is the effect here. The reason why humans are different from other animals is that our intelligence makes us adaptable. Take a lion, or a spider, or a hawk and the whole species exhibits basically the same behavior, which is based on instinct. If you saw one of them then you've kind of seen them all. Humans can change their behavior, develop ne…

I think it's more about our ability to use advanced language than just being smart. Humans can talk, share stories, and pass down knowledge. That's how we build culture and learn from the past, and it makes a big difference.

Re: Small prey compelled prehistoric humans to produce appropriate hunting weapons

#19

Post by gigglesupstairs »

Detrytus wrote: post #15
MichaelZuo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early cities were pretty undesirable places to live, so it makes sense,

Modern cities are no different.

“Desirable” is a variable though across such different times
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