Long Distance Runners

Claims lately in the news, based on twenty years of research, maintain that homo sapiens developed as long distance runners. That pleases me a whole lot. Many fragments of our earliest history make better sense if you think of a bunch of sixteen-year-olds pelting along, racing off to whatever's over the hill.

• Mammoth Trumpet was published by the U of Montana for some years. They devoted most of their print space to establishing that America was populated (North and South) a lot earlier than Clovis times. Sure, think of tribes running half the day -- they get over a lot of territory.
• Alexander's armies borrowed the shield wall, hoplites, and the darting infantry probe, and met great success. So much easier to picture the armies at full stretch, overrunning Galatia.
• The Romans spread all over France so easily -- thudding along to acquire the next town. I tried this out on Joe, and he pointed out that England was safer for a long time because of its winding curling pathways. But the Roman engineers and the pounding Roman feet are fun to think of.
• Some highways in Illinois are described as old Indian paths, and they're as straight as the road to St. Alban's. I always wondered why strolling Indians didn't take byways, wind around to visit pretty streams. Sure, it wasn't strolling people that really wanted the straighaways.