Using Birds to Scout: This may be an odd introduction, but let us consider the human Yao honey hunters of Mozambique and Indicator indicator, the bird species known as the honey hunter. The birds know where the honeycomb is in trees, but they often have difficulty getting it harvested according to evolutionary ecologist Dr. Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge. She studied how local natives symbiotically work with the birds to harvest honey. Gatherers talk to the birds and mimic their songs using a loud thrill followed by a “brr-hmm” sound. Then the birds lead the honey men to bee’s nests and wait for a handout as a reward. The birds eat the comb wax left behind, and often the heat- extracted wax from processing the honey on location. How long has this bird-man tradition lasted? Explorers reported the partnership in 1599. Today’s gatherers cut down trees to get at the bees’ nests. However, stone axes one million years old have been found, suggesting the cooperative tradition has been in long maintenance. Hazda Honey hunters in Africa also call the birds with whistles, words, and shouts. However, up to 10% of the Hazda diet comes from honeyguide hunts, so they burn and bury the bee’s wax to keep the birds wax-hungry and ever willing to hunt. Seventy five percent of the daily honey hunts were productive. So once again, improve your hunting skills by listening to nature! Science News, August 20, 2016 p 10 Native American Women Were Big Game Hunters: It is common in ancient burials to include objects the person used during life, so they could continue using them in their perceived afterlife. Burials of Peruvian women 6,000 to 12,000 years ago contain hunting artifacts such as spear points, scrapers, and implements used to extract bone marrow. These would have been used for big game hunting, not for hunting rodents and birds. The small data set proportions of male and female graves having large animal hunting implements suggest that women did 30 to 50% of the big game hunting of Andean deer and vicunas (pre-domesticated alpacas). This discovery contradicts the modern stereotype of ancient tribal life, in which the men do the hunting and women attend to butchering, cooking, and conversion of animal parts to clothing and utensils. University of Kentucky (Louisville) Dr. Ashley Smallwood points out that observance of modern hunter-gatherers cannot be indicative of ancient human division of labors. University of California (Davis) Randall Haas also thinks he observed female hunting evidence when he excavated a 17-19 year old woman in Peru’s Wilamaya Patjxa area. Her burial tools included spear points and meat processing stones. Science news 5/12/2020 Wood spear before bows: Archeologist have discovered eleven wonderfully preserved wooden spruce tree spears 3 in lake deposits near Hanover, Germany. This is estimated to be 90% of all wooden artifacts from the period 780,000 to 125,000 years, the Middle Pleistocene. The ancient lake people apparently hunted horses, who’s bones were also found with the sharpened poles. The bones and spears were deposited in a lake that was under 3 to 6 feet deep. Attempts to accurately throw reproduction spears failed, leading some archaeologists to conclude these early hominids used the spears in close ambush. The poles were much too long and heavy to throw like spears. The theory was that they drove horses into the lake where they could not outrun the pursuers, and then lanced the beasts.] Science Magazine, Vol 34, June 2014, p1080 . Universities are always propagating new specialties. One is forensic archeo-osteology. These bone detectives studied early human bones contemporary with the horse massacre sites. They found that arm bones had adapted to very strenuous throwing activity by growing larger bone spurs for large flexure muscle attachment. While modern recreationists could not throw the clumsy poles far or with any accuracy, evidently the ancients could. The children must have had toy-heaving sticks, which increased weight and length as they grew. Eventually, they would be strong-armed adults and spear horses like their elders! An Old Hunter Succumbed to A Storm? The 8,000 year old skeletal remains found in the Flat Tops cave were of a man 5 feet tall and 40 years old, quite aged for that time. The early visitor crawled in the cave and died for un known reasons. He was probably an ancestor of the Southern Ute Indians. The Ute Trail was used seasonally to traverse the Flat Tops. There are some “summer” camps with teepee rings, so tents were transported to the interior for lengthy stays. Did native inhabit the high altitudes at other times of the year like spring and fall> Patty Jo Watson, Washington University, St. Louis, expert cave archeologist summarized that the Flat Tops discovery may further rewrites prehistory. It was formerly thought that people that long ago only traveled through high altitude territory using pass trails. Now it appears that people may have mastered living and working at high altitudes. This required special clothing, survival and hunting skills. High altitude permanent sites have been located in the Gnnison, CO area. Chicago Tribune website May 5, 2019