ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been growing skepticism among some students of the pre-sapiens sapiens hominids that the earlier romantic views, which pictured early man as a mighty hunter, are an accurate construction of the past. In fact, the trend in much recent work has been to modify this view and to see as unwarranted much of the evidence previously cited in support of the “mighty hunter” view of the past. Some have begun the serious investigation of the distinct possibility that early man was more commonly a scavenger of animal carcasses than a successful predator. This view, while seriously discussed for the pre-Homo erectus hominids, has not been popularly adopted for the investigation of Homo erectus himself. in fact, many theorists consider Homo erectus to be the author of what is referred to as the “hunting way of life” and believe that this shift may in fact stand behind the species’ successful radiation into new environmental zones (Shipman 1984b).
