How Did Ancient Humans Survive the Deadliest Predators on Earth?

How Did Ancient Humans Survive the Deadliest Predators on Earth? All research and sources are linked below. 🦁 THE CLIP FROM THE VIDEO: three Dorobo hunters walk up to a pride of lions and take their meat (Human Planet, Grasslands): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3MTDFNf71I 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ The killer ape idea: "The Predatory Transition from Ape to Man" by Raymond Dart (1953, International Anthropological and Linguistic Review). Smashed cave bones read as proof we were born killers. ▸ SK 54 and the leopard jaw: "The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy" by C.K. Brain (1981, University of Chicago Press). The two holes in the SK 54 skull match the lower fangs of a fossil leopard jaw from the same cave. ▸ SK 54 belongs to early Homo: "We the hunted" by Martin, Leece, Herries, Baker & Strait (2024, South African Journal of Science) https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2024/16387 : the leopard's victim was early Homo, the group that leads to us. ▸ The Taung Child and the eagle: "Predatory bird damage to the Taung type-skull of Australopithecus africanus" by Lee Berger (2006, American Journal of Physical Anthropology) https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20415 : punctures in the eye sockets match crowned eagle kills. ▸ Crocodiles at Olduvai: "Crocodylian and mammalian carnivore feeding traces on hominid fossils from FLK 22 and FLK NN 3, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania" by Jackson Njau & Robert Blumenschine (2012, Journal of Human Evolution) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248411001382 ▸ Humans as prey: "Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution" by Donna Hart & Robert W. Sussman (2005, Westview Press). ▸ Fire at Wonderwerk Cave: "Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave" (2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1117620109 : burned bones and plant ash from about 1 million years ago. ▸ The slingshot shoulder: "Elastic en