evolutionary psychology

[evolcon]

But the hunting must have been done by large groups, the game was large and formidable, there were only stone tool weapons, one or two strikes were probably not sufficient to bring down the game, cooperation was necessary. I'm thinking of ants taking down a grasshopper.  language certainly would make cooperation and coordination more successful.  Maybe that is why homo out competed Neanderthals.

Not really, there weren't many large groups of us in the first place.  Megafauna hunters were specialist tool makers.  You can make a simple wooden tool in a few hours that can take down a elephant, adding a stone point is nice.  Most of the time is spent looking for the perfect branch.  Most, though, we think would have been done in by a trap of some sort.  Pits and falls, naturally occurring and man made.  There are hunters to this day that just flat out run their prey to death.  Shooting game is sport, fishing with a hook and a line is sport.  Baskets, nets, spring triggers - that was hunting, for us, for a long time.  Aside from the megafauna specialists, we think that lots of us didn't do much hunting in the sense of stalking prey with a spear or a bow.  These are cultures that came late to bows, if ever - or never developed a dart thrower.  When they do, they appear to be designed with conflict rather than wild harvest in mind.  It's actually pretty wild.  

Still, hunters are, as a group, early adopters.  There's probably something like an economy of communication in hunting.  Patterns of speech or words that were shaped by their utility in that specific area.  If we conceive of a group of hunters without language coming across it (by any description), all we have to do is turn to modern sports mags to see how quickly it could spread.  Alot of what we think are our oldest words have to do with family, animals, and farming.

Are you aware of the reports and the films of chimpanzee packs hunting, killing and eating monkeys, rocks and sticks as weapons, a cacophony of noise, a large and joyful
ritual.  I don't think anyone is aware of an individual or one or two chimps displaying this behavior.