Revealed: The Runners Of 20,000BC

SMH ^ | 12-22-2005 | Deborah Smith

[Dustbunny]

Wow, that is neat but why only one set?

[shuckmaster]

Very interesting. The more I study human evolution, the more I believe that the key to understanding how modern humans evolved from earlier ape-like hominids is that one relatively small group was running along beaches an average of 40-50 miles a day and swimming across any channels that separated those beaches. Nearly any difference you can find between early humans and either chimps or pre 200,000BCE hominids is directly related to running and/or swimming for survival. It wasn't until about 50,000BCE that modern humans started moving inland leaving evidence of the "great leap forward".

[SunkenCiv]

There's also the book "The Descent of Woman", a sort of feminist approach from the 1970s.

[blam]

". Nearly any difference you can find between early humans and either chimps or pre 200,000BCE hominids is directly related to running and/or swimming for survival."

Humans have the most endurance of all mammals. If a human can pursue/track any mammal long enough, the other mammal will drop dead from exhaustion before the human. Those humans without great endurance didn't eat and died of starvation.