The study, unprecedented in both scope and timespan, presents a comprehensive analysis of data on animal bones discovered at dozens of prehistoric sites in and around Israel. The paper was published in the prestigious scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews. Shai Meiri of the School of Zoology and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, and Jacob Dembitzer, a research student of Prof. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Prof. The researchers also claim that about 10,000 years ago, when animals larger than deer became extinct, humans began to domesticate plants and animals to supply their needs, and this may be why the agricultural revolution began in the Levant at precisely that time. In this way, according to the researchers, early humans repeatedly overhunted large animals to extinction (or until they became so rare that they disappeared from the archaeological record) and then went on to the next in size – improving their hunting technologies to meet the new challenge.

The researchers claim that at any given time early humans preferred to hunt the largest animals available in their surroundings, which provided the greatest quantities of food in return for a unit of effort. Damage to the environment, however, was often irreversible'.Ī groundbreaking study by researchers from Tel Aviv University tracks the development of early humans' hunting practices over the last 1.5 million years – as reflected in the animals they hunted and consumed. The researchers: 'The study suggests that ever since the advent of humankind, humans have always ravaged their natural environment, but also found solutions for the problems they created.The researchers hypothesize that technological advancements throughout human evolution were driven by the need to hunt progressively smaller and faster animals.When only small animals remained in their environment, humans began to domesticate animals and developed agriculture. The study shows that humans always hunted the largest available animals until they became exceedingly rare or extinct, and then went on to target the next-largest.

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