persistence hunting was one of the main hunting strategies during a large portion of human evolution before ranged weapons were invented
How do ranged weapons invalidate persistence hunting?
If you're trying to chase down an animal till it's exhausted, I think you'd want to be throwing stuff at it to injure or at least to keep it moving.
Also, was there a time before ranged weapons? As soon as humans have weapons we have ranged weapons because we can throw. Atlatls and slings - tools to help you throw sticks and stones - wouldn't have been developed if we weren't already throwing sticks and stones at things.