ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with aspects of the convergent evolution of hunting methods in North America and Southwest and Central Asia, as well as within each continent. Homology and homoplasy are used as methodological frameworks for understanding the development of similar hunting adaptations in various conditions across time and space. We then address the decline of communal hunting on both continents, mainly due to changes in social organization and the introduction of firearms and motorized vehicles. We also review the current state of ungulate herd populations, which were once abundant across the landscape but are now extirpated or endangered, although others have recovered owing to national and international conservation efforts. Following the devastation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, those endeavors provide some optimism for the future of previously massively hunted herd species.
