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The main methods in use today are stalking, ambush (hunting from blinds), driving, trapping or a combination thereof. Various big-game hunting methods have been developed over centuries. Native Americans hunting bison, from an 1855 illustration The Clovis points (North America) and Fishtail projectile points (South America) that developed shortly after the initial colonisation of the Americas around 13,000 years ago are thought to have been primarily used for big game hunting, which may have been a contributing factor in the extinction of most large mammals on these continents. Based on cave paintings, it appears that early man hunted mammoth in groups, using a combination of spears or large rocks, or alternatively driving the animal off a cliff. heidelbergensis already had intellectual and cognitive skills like anticipatory planning, thinking and acting that so far have only been attributed to modern man. The Schöningen spears and their correlation of finds are evidence that complex technological skills already existed 300,000 years ago, and are the first obvious proof of an active (big game) hunt. Hunting of big game for food is an ancient practice, possibly arising with the emergence of Homo sapiens ( anatomically modern humans), and possibly pre-dating it, given the known propensity of other great apes to hunt, and even eat their own species. The term is often associated with the hunting of Africa's "Big Five" games ( lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and rhinoceros), and with tigers and rhinoceroses on the Indian subcontinent. The Duke of Algeciras with a trophy African leopard, one of the ' Big Five', Southern Rhodesia, 1926īig-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/ antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/ oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/ taxidermy, or simply just for recreation (" sporting").
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