William wrote:
> I don't see why it should follow that they must have been
> hunters rather  
> than scavengers.
> This from my own experience, and from reading of the 
> techniques used by  
> paleo man, aboriginal Americans, Inuit etc. Hunting is 
> neither harsh nor  
> demanding. 

Yeah, I'm not sure what they meant by that. The more obvious evidence for
the capability of Australopithecine, Homo Erectus, and Homo Ergaster to hunt
is that smaller primates like the chimpanzee and capuchin monkey hunt. That
quote was meant to show that respected scientists believe a 11-12 year old H
Erectus or Ergaster boy was capable of hunting and that archeological
evidence is also used to support the hunting hypothesis, in addition to the
observations of today's hunter gatherers, chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys,
baboons, etc.

> If they were scavengers it would make sense that they needed
> to flee when  
> the predator returned to it's kill, so then speed was required.
> 
> William

The pro-scavenger camp says speed was not necessary because the hominids
would have waited for the lions and hyenas to finish eating and then grab
the skull and long bones, bring them back to camp and crack them open with
stones to retrieve the brains and marrow from the carcasses. My guess is
that proto-humans did both hunting and scavenging, with hunting being the
more dominant technique (as it is with chimps and capuchins) and with
hunting frequency and prey size increasing as the hominids became larger,
smarter and more adept at hunting.