How Do We Reconstruct Hunting Patterns in the Past?

Abstract

Since this book is about big-game hunting – and, as will become apparent shortly, scavenging as well – in the distant past, some of my non-paleoanthropologist readers may wonder how, in the absence of written records, we find out what people hunted, and how they went about it, thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years ago. Hence, before launching into a discussion of why ancient humans hunted big game, it may be useful to take a brief detour here to talk about the principal techniques, approaches, and assumptions that paleoanthropologists use and make to arrive at such reconstructions.