Archaeology Student wants help!
 

Hi there, and thank you for taking your time for my post. I am an Archaeology/Anthropology at Indiana University. I am writing a paper about Middle Paleolithic hunter societies, and would like the opinions of a few of you experts!

Obviously there are differences between modern and Paleolithic hunting practices, however I am specifically looking for information reference the liklihood of large prey (deer and larger) to be attuned to hunter presence over a range of time, and be more or less "spooked" by human presence.

I have included a SurveyMonkey link here for anyone to take a very short survey that will be invaluable. I assure you it is safe, and that it doesn't link to anything awful. LOL. I will also periodically check this forum to see if there are any responses to this post.

Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TLYP37
Thank you in advance for any help you can give! There just aren't many peer-reviewed, published articles on this aspect of hunting, therefore I have to do some of my own initial research to determine the liklihood of prey coming around areas of hunter habitation.

You will find that new people seeking such information will often be held suspect as the animal rights religionists tend to seek information for their crusades on hunting forums. You will get better results by posting the survey questions here for perusal and questions before people take the actual survey.

The survey questions were not well thought out and tend to appear to be from an anti- hunters perspective! I'd suggest that other site members not bother to take it!

I couldn't care less about hunting. In fact, I rather enjoy deer jerky. Especially after one hit my Mustang a few years ago.

The questions (which are very well thought out and kept very basic for internet purposes) were to determine the frequencies of hunting, the locations of hunting, and then to use the pertinent data from that to determine approximately how often hunting sites are used and then the resulting cohabitation of prey to predator habitus.

They are on "SurveyMonkey.com," a very popular and well-regarded website not known for malware or advertisement usage. If there are people out there who are "anti-hunting" for whatever reason, then they will take any information you give them and use it for their purpose.

The use of this forum was meant to augment emic research being done in person to provide etic, or purely quantitative data.

If you don't want to take it, don't. If you do, and wish to be helpful, then you have my thanks.

I would suggest investing your own time and energy to go hunting, and learn for yourself. The problems with surveys, they are used to generate statistics. Statistics don't lie, but the people who make them do.

I didn't see anything wrong with the questions, but I still highly recommend that you go out and hunt a lot.

Yeah, I have noticed that. The trouble is that I am a Veteran, and while I don't mind guns (I have several) I would just prefer to use them for targets anymore. I really have had enough death. Especially death early in the morning.

Well, except for death that happened 50,000 years ago. LOL.

Anyways, I am going to a gun show/collectable/hunting expo nearby tomorrow to gather more in-person data, but I was kinda hoping for the pure numbers aspect of things on here.

BIG BIG BIG thanks to all those who have answered. Your information has been awesome. Interestingly, I have learned from a few that your presence over several hunting seasons does not seem to inherently "spook" or scare off prey. That's really interesting.

If it helps, I am specifically studying the Neandertal site of La Chapelle Aux Saints cave in France. It contains one of the oldest Neandertal finds, and has long been a cornerstone of the argument that Neandertals buried their dead.
I am trying to counter that theory. One of the points made by those who feel that this was an intentional burial is that if the body had been left inside this cave without being buried, it would certainly have been devoured by large scavengers and carnivores. Therefore it must have been buried to have been preserved.
I am arguing that if a human (Neandertals are Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis so they were "human") was using an area to hunt for an extended period of time, and died in his cave (full of his scent and central to his hunting area) that anything larger than small rats and insects would avoid the cave out of fear. Therefore, the body would have been left to be preserved in the cave by natural sedimentation.

Unfortunately there is little empirical evidence for this common knowledge that animals fear humans, so I am attempting a small ethnography of hunting to determine if prey specifically avoids a hunting ground after a period of occupancy by a hunting human.

Again, thanks everyone who answered!!

I took the survey. You might get a lot more responses if you simply posted the survey (not the link) on HuntingNet and explained why you're doing it. You wouldn't be the first person to conduct research studies or surveys on this website. Once people feel comfortable that you're doing legitimate research and not something for anti-hunting, people are a lot more likely to participate. You would have to collate the date yourself as opposed to the survey monkey website but you would probably get more specific information that might prove more useful. Just a thought.

I'll compile that and put it up. That's a great idea, thank you!

I Agree with topgun