Glynn Isaac Defines "the Homebase Hypothesis"

It has been argued since Darwin's day that the great apes were man's nearest living relatives, and as evidence emerged during the late 1960's of the hunting propensities and simple tool use of chimpanzees (Goodall 1986), anthropologists found more and more reason to presume similarity of behavior between modern (e.g., Pan troglodytes or Pan panicus) and ancient varieties of hominids (Tanner 1981).

Still, modern humans are not chimps. Substantial differences of behavior exist between the great apes and hominids, and it was the late Glynn Isaac's notion that these differences began early in our history.

Specifically, he noted that the modern human "habitually carries tools, food and other possessions either with his arms or in containers," communicates with other humans by a spoken language, that the acquisition and sharing of food is "a corporate responsibility," that modern human hunter-gathers conduct their foraging operations in the vicinity of communal gathering places or "home bases," and that humans seek to acquire high-protein foodstuffs by hunting or fishing. None of these are common behavior among the apes or a

Meanwhile, that frontal attack was going on in East Africa, much of it under Isaac's direction at the Koobi Fora research project, of which he had been co-leader (with Richard Leakey) since 1970. There seems to have been a graduate student uncovered with each and every artifact, and many of them produced dissertations on paleolithic taphonomy and went on to related careers-- too many to name here.

--- 1986, "The Hunting Hypothesis, Archaeological Methods, and the Past," American Association of Physical Anthropologists Annual Luncheon Address, Apr 1986, pp 1-9, Yearbook of Physical Anthropology vol 30 (1987) Reprinted in Debating Archaeology, New York, Academic Press, 1989.

At roughly the same time, a new generation of researchers, many of them trained by Isaac, were returning to Olorgesaile and Olduvai Gorge to confirm or refute the lessons learned at Koobi Fora. Some concentrated on the bones of hominids (Michael Day, Alan Walker), some on the dinner bones (Pat Shipman, Henry Bunn, Ellen Kroll), some on the sites themselves (Richard Potts). Others, seeking out modern day analogues of ancient hunter-gathers, went to Botswana to observe the !Kung San (R. B. Lee, I. Devor, J. E. Yellen). One apostate (Tim White) defected to the home base of Donald Johanson.

The part of conventional wisdom that most annoyed Binford was evidently what another author called "the hunting hypothesis" (Ardrey 1976). Already skeptical about Neandertal's abilities as a hunter, Binford was quite as willing to throw cold water on any too- human proclivity of Homo erectus, and firmly convinced that archaeological data would support him. As soon as reliable data and methods for interpreting it appeared, of course. His review called for a "frontal attack" on tool-fauna associations in the Lower Paleolithic.

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