Editing Hunting (section)

===Upper Paleolithic to Mesolithic===
{{main|Hunter-gatherers}}
[[File:Algerien Desert.jpg|thumb|[[Saharan rock art]] with prehistoric archers]]
[[File:21 Walrus Hunt 1999.jpg|thumb|[[Inuit]] hunting [[walrus]], 1999]]
Evidence exists that hunting may have been one of the multiple, or possibly main, [[environmental factor]]s leading to the [[Holocene extinction]] of [[megafauna]] and their replacement by smaller [[herbivores]].<ref>{{cite journal | last = Surovell | first = Todd |author2=Nicole Waguespack |author3=P. Jeffrey Brantingham | title = Global archaeological evidence for proboscidean overkill | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 102 | issue = 17 | pages = 6231–36 | date = 13 April 2005 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.0501947102| pmid = 15829581 | pmc = 1087946 | bibcode = 2005PNAS..102.6231S | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dembitzer |first1=Jacob |last2=Barkai |first2=Ran |last3=Ben-Dor |first3=Miki |last4=Meiri |first4=Shai |date=2022 |title=Levantine overkill: 1.5 million years of hunting down the body size distribution |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121005230 |journal=[[Quaternary Science Reviews]] |volume=276 |issue= |page=107316 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107316 |bibcode=2022QSRv..27607316D |s2cid=245236379 |access-date=December 22, 2021 |archive-date=22 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211222145949/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379121005230 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the [[Australian megafauna]] that was widespread prior to human occupation.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Miller | first1 = G.H. | year = 2005 | title = Ecosystem Collapse in Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal Extinction | journal = [[Science (journal)|Science]] | volume = 309 | issue = 5732 | pages = 287–90 | doi = 10.1126/science.1111288 | pmid = 16002615 | bibcode = 2005Sci...309..287M | s2cid = 22761857 | url = http://doc.rero.ch/record/14709/files/PAL_E1537.pdf | access-date = 3 January 2023 | archive-date = 7 January 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230107032837/https://doc.rero.ch/record/14709/files/PAL_E1537.pdf | url-status = live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Prideaux | first1 = G.J. | display-authors = etal   | year = 2007 | title = An arid-adapted middle Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from south-central Australia | journal = Nature | volume = 445 | issue = 7126| pages = 422–25 | doi=10.1038/nature05471 | pmid=17251978| bibcode = 2007Natur.445..422P | s2cid = 4429899 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Saltré|first1=F.|last2=Chadoeuf|first2=J.|last3=Peters|first3=K.J.|last4=McDowell|first4=M.C.|last5=Friedrich|first5=T.| last6=Timmermann|first6=A.|last7=Ulm|first7=S.|last8=Bradshaw|first8=C.J.|year=2019|title=Climate-human interaction associated with southeast Australian megafauna extinction patterns|journal=Nature Communications|volume=10|issue=1|pages=5311|doi=10.1038/s41467-019-13277-0|pmid=31757942 |pmc=6876570 |bibcode=2019NatCo..10.5311S }}</ref>

Hunting was a crucial component of hunter-gatherer societies before the [[domestication]] of [[livestock]] and the [[Neolithic Revolution|dawn of agriculture]], beginning about 11,000 years ago in some parts of the world. In addition to the [[spear]], [[hunting weapon]]s developed during the Upper Paleolithic include the [[atlatl]] (a spear-thrower; before 30,000 years ago) and the [[Bow (weapon)|bow]] (18,000 years ago). By the [[Mesolithic]], [[Hunting strategy|hunting strategies]] had diversified with the development of these more far-reaching weapons and the [[domestication of the dog]] about 15,000 years ago. Evidence puts the earliest known [[mammoth]] hunting in Asia with [[spears]] to approximately 16,200 years ago.<ref>{{cite conference |first=Vasiliy N. |last=Zenin |author2=Evgeny N. Mashenko |author3=Sergey V. Leshchinskiy |author4=Aleksandr F. Pavlov |author5=Pieter M. Grootes |author6=Marie-Josée Nadeau |title=The First Direct Evidence of Mammoth Hunting in Asia (Lugovskoye Site, Western Siberia) (L) |book-title=3rd International Mammoth Conference |publisher=Government of Yukon |date=24–29 May 2003 |location=Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada |url=http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/abstrt-z.htm |access-date=1 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061117111346/http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/abstrt-z.htm |archive-date=17 November 2006}}</ref>

[[File:Kærvspids, Bjerlev Hede.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Sharp [[flint]] piece from [[Bjerlev Hede]] in central Jutland. Dated around 12,500 BC and considered the oldest hunting tool from Denmark.]]

Many species of animals have been hunted throughout history. One theory is that in North America and [[Eurasia]], [[reindeer|caribou and wild reindeer]] "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting"<ref name=Burch>"In North America and Eurasia the species has long been an important resource—in many areas ''the'' most important resource—for peoples inhabiting the northern [[Taiga|boreal forest]] and tundra regions. Known human dependence on caribou/wild reindeer has a long history, beginning in the Middle Pleistocene (Banfield 1961:170; Kurtén 1968:170) and continuing to the present. […] The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years." {{cite journal | last1 = Burch | first1 = Ernest S. Jr. | year = 1972 | title = The Caribou/Wild Reindeer as a Human Resource | journal = American Antiquity | volume = 37 | issue = 3| pages = 339–68 | doi=10.2307/278435 | jstor=278435| s2cid = 161921691 }}</ref> (see also [[Reindeer Age]]), although the varying importance of different species depended on the geographic location.

[[File:Black Figured Olpe depicting the return of a hunter and his dog.jpg|thumb|Ancient Greek [[black-figure pottery]] depicting the return of a hunter and his dog; made in [[Athens]] c. 540 BC, found in [[Rhodes]]]]

[[Mesolithic]] hunter-gathering lifestyles remained prevalent in some parts of the [[Americas]], [[Sub-Saharan Africa]], and [[Siberia]], as well as all of Australia, until the European [[Age of Discovery]]. They still persist in some [[tribal societies]], albeit in rapid decline. Peoples that preserved Paleolithic hunting-gathering until the recent past include some [[List of indigenous peoples in Brazil|indigenous peoples of the Amazonas]] ([[Aché]]), some Central and Southern African ([[San people]]), some peoples of [[New Guinea]] ([[Fayu people|Fayu]]), the [[Mlabri people|Mlabri]] of [[Thailand]] and [[Laos]], the [[Vedda people]] of [[Sri Lanka]], and a handful of [[uncontacted peoples]]. In Africa, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes are the [[Hadza people|Hadza]] of Tanzania.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/africa/wherewework/the-hadza-helping-hunter-gatherers-protect-their-homeland.xml|title=The Nature Conservancy|website=The Nature Conservancy|access-date=2016-09-15|archive-date=3 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180703050952/https://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/africa/wherewework/the-hadza-helping-hunter-gatherers-protect-their-homeland.xml|url-status=live}}</ref>