Survival hunting: Ensnaring a deer and axing it.

[Loyalist Dave]

I remember while getting my anthropology degree of a study of hunting in Africa, where a group of men on the plains (no trees to jump from, or hide in) were trying to determine the difficulty of hunting with only a few stone cutting tools, quite small, among several men. They had to figure out if they could bring down an animal with bare hands, as they couldn't fashion spears (no wood big enough) and couldn't make snares (again no raw materials), couldn't carry big rocks to bash a skull (they and the game moved too far and fast each day), and couldn't use pits (game moved around too much). What they did was work as a group, singled out an older animal, and kept it moving until it was exhausted. They worked in teams, taking turns, and they were to keep the animal moving, while the remainder kept up at a slower pace. This took several days, but they succeeded in getting the animal so worn out, it really couldn't run off. They approached it, jumped it, and suffocated it. Not an easy task, but they pulled it off, and then used the small cutting stones to butcher it out.

It was just a test, and they wanted more than the protein. They wanted the bones, sinew, and rawhide too.

LD

 

[daniel (australia)]

Now there's a pretty picture.....a bunch of grown men chasing a sheep through the bush.
I hope no one else saw that. LMAO

Not as bad as blokes fossicking under rocks for crickets and other bugs...mmmmm crunchy . A couple of days on that diet and that old sheep was just so much self-propelled food

 

[30 cal slob]

great post!

 

[Art Eatman]

If there are small critters around that can be killed with a rock, stick or figure-4 trap, there's a start on sinew.

Knapp a point from chert. Use multiple small sticks bound together with the rawhide sinew from the rabbit or whatever to make a shaft. (Fasces, remember?)

Stab/spear larger critter.

Better to start at the bottom and work up to success than to start at the top and work down to failure...

, Art