You can smell a homeless person before you see them. Did you see any animal life after 5 days without a shower? The only way caveman was a successful hunter is through brains and teamwork. They must have encircled their prey that ran in terror towards the center from our smell. Our signature rattlesnake rattler is our smell. For bears though, king of the forest, our smell may be attractant. There is evidence we ate a lot of bear.
Most human traits evolve in tribal warfare. Unlike all other animals where fight or flee is over in seconds, we need well lubricated armpits to work weapons in battle for hours at a time. An unwanted side effect is the smell, but this turned out to be an advantage for team hunting.
Agreed. We are all descended from the perpetrators of genocide.
we need well lubricated armpits to work weapons in battle for hours at a time.
Disagree. Tribal combat never consists of hours of stand up toe to toe fighting. It is raids and ambushes, remarkably like how you describe animal fighting.
At the very earliest, ranked infantry fighting didn't come in till agriculture forced people to defend particular territory. And in the sense you are using the term, probably not till the Greeks invented hoplite shock infantry warfare.