A new study combines palaeoanthropology and diving physiology to address a fundamental question in human evolution: why did humans evolve their exceptional aerobic endurance? Did our ancestors begin endurance-running terrestrial prey to exhaustion, or did breath-hold diving for aquatic resources also play a key role? Drawing on comparative physiology, anatomy, paleoecology and paleoanthropology, researchers Josephine Joordens and Erika Schagatay propose a new “dive first, run later” hypothesis. In their study, they challenge and modify the popular endurance running hypothesis, arguing that the origin of human stamina cannot be understood from land-based foraging alone.