Humans are natural born endurance runners

With the 2024 Summer Olympics gracing our television screens, the spectacle of endurance is front and center. This tenacity is epitomized by the ultimate test of fitness and sheer determination: the marathon.

While sprinters often steal the spotlight, it’s the long-distance runners who truly exemplify the remarkable capacity of humans for endurance running.

Despite not being able to outrun a cheetah in a sprint, humans can outlast most creatures over long distances, especially in scorching weather conditions.

This is primarily due to our locomotor muscles, which are predominantly composed of fatigue-resistant, slow-twitch fibers.

Coupled with our unique ability to produce sweat, allowing us to efficiently dissipate heat, the image of humans as exceptional endurance runners becomes clear.

The science behind human endurance

In the mid-1980s, biologist David Carrier put forth the endurance-pursuit hypothesis. This theory suggests that humans acquired our exceptional endurance running traits in order to chase down and exhaust large game animals through persistence hunting.

This idea was later expanded upon by scientists Dennis Bramble and Daniel Lieberman, who speculated that such traits first appeared in our Homo genus ancestors around two million years ago and were crucial in the development of the human form.

However, like any good scientific hypothesis, the endurance-pursuit theory is not without its detractors. Professor Bruce Winterhalder, previously of the UC Davis Department of Anthropology, voiced two major concerns.

First, running requires more energy than walking, which raises the question of whether it’s an efficient hunting strategy based on a cost-benefit analysis. Second, there’s a dearth of examples of modern hunter-gatherer populations using endurance-pursuit tactics.

This scarcity of evidence led some to question the importance of these strategies in our Paleolithic ancestors’ hunting practices.

Secrets of historical hunts

In a recent study – a collaboration between Winterhalder and paleoanthropologist Eugène Morin of Trent University – the team utilized mathematical modeling and a multi-year ethnohistoric investigation to bolster the legitimacy of Carrier’s hypothesis.

The digital age proved to be of great assistance, as the wide availability of digitized historical accounts and the power of analytical software helped uncover valuable instances of endurance pursuits throughout history.

By screening these resources, Winterhalder and Morin unearthed 391 accounts of hunts from 1527 through the early 20th century that exhibit endurance pursuit tactics, originating from 272 locations globally.

Breaking down the hunt

Upon analyzing these historical hunts, a common pattern surfaced. After spotting their prey, hunters would begin their pursuit. However, the prey would rapidly outdistance the hunters, pause to recover, and then resume running.

This cycle would repeat until the prey was completely exhausted and finally overtaken by the hunters. The tactics, however, varied considerably.

The accounts revealed that hunts often involved a level of cooperation and teamwork, suggesting a social aspect to endurance hunting.

Winterhalder and Morin believe that this might have afforded males the opportunity to flaunt their athletic prowess, thereby increasing their social standing or chances of securing a mate.

Women and the endurance puzzle

Winterhalder and Morin are not solely focused on male endurance runners. Their future research will delve into the role of women in these pursuits.

While the existing data points to female participation in endurance pursuits only 3-4% of the time, this doesn’t necessarily imply that females were not proficient runners.

Winterhalder mentioned instances of festivals, feasts, and ritual events featuring running contests, which typically included women, men, and children.

This even extends to hunting, where recent research shows that early women were also active participants.

Efficiency of endurance hunting

Through mathematical modeling, Winterhalder and Morin were able to determine the efficiency of endurance hunting in various conditions.

They discovered that in contexts like high heat or when the prey was hindered by environmental factors such as snow, endurance pursuits could yield equal or superior results compared with other foraging methods.

As Winterhalder emphasizes, our ability to run long distances with stamina is unusual in the animal kingdom. Perhaps this explains the euphoric “runner’s high” we often experience.

Ultimately, the research provides compelling evidence supporting the unique human ability for endurance running.

The study is published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

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