Home‐range size in large‐bodied carnivores as a model for predicting neandertal territory size
Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews
Published online on June 17, 2016
Abstract
Adult human foragers expend roughly 30–60 kcal per km in unburdened walking at optimal speeds.1,2 In the context of foraging rounds and residential moves, they may routinely travel distances of 50–70 km per week, often while carrying loads.3 Movement on the landscape, then, is arguably the single most expensive item in the activity budgets of hunter‐gatherers. Mobility costs may have been greater still for Neandertals. They had stocky, short‐limbed physiques that were energetically costly to move4 and lived in relatively unproductive Pleistocene environments5 that may have required greater movement to deal with problems of biodepletion and resource patchiness.6 But just how mobile were the Neandertals?