Really??, then why don't we see Amazon Stone Age Indians
They live in a densly vegitated environment where running long distances may not offer a distinct advantage?.
or Aborigines
They have no predators and have developed a nice throwing ability (along with the tools needed to get it done) that makes running obsolete?
or Highland Asian Stone Agers from Mindanao doing the same?
Very adept at farming and perhaps too damned cold to allow for a running frame to evolve?
Like I said, I've got nothing that would definatively prove which environmental factor would favor long sprinting but you can bet that it is found wherever these sprinters originated.
I am not trying to make a political point here but I am interested in exploring the flaws in the "Culture, Environment, Geography Explains Everything" argument. Are you saying that once upon a time Caucazoid or Mongoloid race folks could have competed just as well but we became too civilized and less physically adept?
Maybe not. Perhaps caucaziods, once they actually became such that is, never had the conditions to develop the ability in the first place. Perhaps, at the same time my ancestors were losing their pigmintation the folks that were living in certain parts of africa were doing a lot of running for whatever reason, Lots-o-lions maybe.
If so did our environmental factors civilize us or vice versa.
IMO it could go either way. I think that early europeans became more adept at civilizing the environment while early africans continued to adapt to their environment. My ancestors had to modify their environment to survive while africans could survive in the same fashion they had been practicing for millenia.
EBUCK