Reddit reviews The Art of Tracking, the Origin of Science

There's a book which argues that tracking gave us the cognitive skills to later do science.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Tracking-Origin-Science/dp/0864861311

I've done a bit of tracking here and there, and it really is a hard thing where you have to observe very closely and piece together a lot of diverse information to figure out what went on.

You have to not only figure out what print is from what animal, but what the gait patterns mean (which is a seriously complex skill to decipher gait), how new or old the track is, contextualize it within the larger ecosystem and figure out what the animal may have been doing, piece together other incidental clues like scat, nibbled leaves or grass, urine, hair, etc.

It really is quite a feat to develop many of these skills.

We used to do it all the time, it was a key facet of our survival strategy as a species.

We also are the only animal that can throw so accurately, and that was a big part of our survival strategy too.

Edit: There's also a good book which argues that tracking (as in tracking animals) was the origin of science in the human species, or at least was what put in place our capacity for very sharp discernment that eventually led into science and technology.

The fact of the matter is, humans where VERY good at what we did as hunter gatherers. You don't see other apes that are able to take down a wolly mammoth.