Our Ancestors Ran Animals to Death? Well, Not Exactly

He never stood a chance.

If you happen to be a distance runner or a quadruped, there's an article that may interest you in the May 2011 issue of Outside magazine.

The article is titled "Fair Chase" and subtitled "On the plains of New Mexico, a band of elite marathoners tests a controversial theory of evolution: that humans can outrun the fastest animals on earth," and you can read it right here.

The framework for the article — let's pit some fast marathoners against a pronghorn antelope and see if they can't pursue the thing until it overheats and falls over — is a little gimmicky, but fun. And I won't give away the ending here.

The underlying idea is the theory that, as Outside explains, "our ancestors evolved into endurance athletes in order to hunt quad­rupeds by running them to exhaustion." (This is called "persistence hunting.")  Harvard's Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, is among this theory's most visible proponents.

Well, with all due respect to Dr. Lieberman and his fellow experts: I think you're close, but not quite there.

My own theory is that our ancestors did indeed use running to hunt — not by running animals to exhaustion, but by cornering them in social situations and talking to them about running until they collapsed of boredom.

At which point the runners could surround the quadruped and devour it at their leisure, using the calories to fuel more long runs and speed workouts, which they could then describe at agonizing length to future quadrupeds, who would then collapse of boredom, etc.

You know. Circle of life.

A typical scenario might play out like this, at a gathering of our australo­pithecine ancestors, one of whom has buttonholed an obviously uncomfortable antelope by a crude, stone punch bowl:

*      *      *

Australo­pithecine ancestor: "Me been runner for long time. Me not training for anything right now. Maybe spring marathon. Whatever 'marathon' is. And 'spring.' You run? You have four leg. You probably run."

Antelope: [snorts]

Australo­pithecine ancestor: "Me bet you run fast. Me no run fast. Me more of jogger. Ha ha. But at least me out there. Me try to do many short run most time, then one long run some time. Also Yasso 800."

Antelope: [eyes dart nervously, looking for an out]

Australo­pithecine ancestor: "You barefoot runner? Me into barefoot running. Change life. Just seem more natural."

Antelope: [snorts, shudders]

Australo­pithecine ancestor: "You know where me like run? Savanna. Flat, pretty. Me feel like me can run forever on savanna. Me perspire, but that okay. You perspire? No? Ha. You look like you want perspire now. Anywaaaaaay… Me tell you about time me hurt leg?"

Antelope: [twitching, panting, scratching at ground]

Australo­pithecine ancestor: "Me try to run through hurt. No work. Hurt spread! Look, me show you where pain go…"

Antelope: [falls over, unconscious, bored out of its skull]

Australo­pithecine ancestor, to others: "Dinner ready!"

*      *      *

…Like I said, this is also just a theory. Maybe someday I'll test it. As soon as I finish that crude, stone punch bowl.

Attention, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Area Runners!
If you're running this weekend's Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon and 5-K — or, heck, if you just live nearby, come meet a few Runner's World staffers at the race expo this Saturday:

Amby Burfoot, signing copies of The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life
Budd Coates (9:00 – 5:00), promoting CoreSliders and signing copies of Run Your Butt Off!
Sarah Lorge Butler, delivering a talk on Run Your Butt Off!, at 9:00, then signing copies of the book afterward
Charlie Butler (10:00 – 5:00), signing copies of The Long Run and delivering a talk on the book's subject, Matt Long, at 2:00
Mark Remy (10:00 – 2:00-ish), signing copies of The Runner's Rule Book and The Runner's Field Manual

Where: Holiday Inn Allentown, 904 West Hamilton Street (click here for details and map)

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Category Running |

A Pedometer from Einstein

Photo via Wikipedia Commons

First, a big, fat disclaimer: I do not understand physics. I know that gravity keeps me from floating into space, thanks to the earth's rotation or something. I know there's something called "Planck's constant," even though I have no clue what it is (or who Planck was). I know about inertia, mostly from firsthand experience. And that's pretty much that.

Still, I find the Einstein's Pedometer app kind of fascinating.

A poetically brief description on the app's iTunes page lays it all out in two sentences, which for unexplained reasons are broken into three lines:

According to Einstein's theory of relativity,
When you move faster, time slows.

This application is using GPS and Lorentz transformations, to calculate how much time you get.

So, add "Lorentz transformations" to the list of things I don't understand.

A review of the app on Gizmag.com puts it in layman's terms:

Among other things, Einstein's theory of special relativity says that as an object's velocity increases, time as experienced by the object will slow down when compared to another object traveling at a lower velocity. … While the greater the velocities involved, the greater the effect, the theory applies to all relative movement. Now there's an iPhone app that will let you know just how many extra nanoseconds you've gained by getting moving as opposed to sitting on your rear end.

To calculate just how much time you've gained by walking to the shops, the Einstein's Pedometer app uses the iPhone's GPS capabilities and the Lorentz transformation, which describes how two observers' varying measurements of space and time can be converted into each others frame of reference. A quick stroll round the neighborhood with Einstein's Pedometer yielded me an extra 0.00021440 nanoseconds than if I'd stayed at my desk doing something else, like working.

More motivation to head out for a run, if you needed one.

And hey, don't laugh: Over enough years, those fractions of nanoseconds can really add up. Maybe to a whole nanosecond!

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Category Running |