that suggests early hominids living in home bases and the new studies that may suggest different.

The first archaeological sites from the Late Pliocene to the Lower Pliocene represented home bases suggesting that early hominids shifted their way of life to a way of life like present hunter and gathers (Potts, 338). However recent studies done from Olduvai Gorge suggests there are possible differences from early hominid to modern hunter and gathers. These differences have a significant meaning in the evolution of the hunting and gathering way of life.

An archaeological site from the Paleolithic is usually defined by a concentration of stone artifacts (Potts, 338). Henri Martin and Davidson Black, tried to infer hominid behavior and ecology from the ancient archaeological remains and assumed that the association of fossil animal bones with stone tools was an important source of information about hominid activities (Potts, 338).

In the nineteen sixties early archaeological sites and the study of hominid activities was much more widely acknowledged. The archaeological remains at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania at Koobi Fora in Kenya, and in the

Potts talks about with the exception of site DK, almost all the stones found at the sites in Bed one were carried there by hominids. And then says that if this is true hominids carrying these stone tools back and forth would have taken a lot of time and energy suggesting, that these camps were relatively permant. To investigate this they used computer simulation. This indicates that on the other hand that the sites could have been produced by hominids simply as an energy -saving strategy (Potts, 345). In almost every stimulation the production and simultaneous use of multiple caches of stone tools rather- than single home base. Thus the accumulation of stone artifacts and animal bones at the same location does not necessarily mean that hominids used these sites as home bases. An alternative to the home base theory must taken into account four factor: evidence for the competition between hominids and carnivores over meat and marrow; the attraction of carnivores to the sites to which hominids transported bones; the incomplete processing of bones and possibly of meat at these sites; and long period over which bones accumulated at each site, as compared with the brief stays of modern hunter-gathers at their campsites (Potts, 345). According to this hypothesis, stone raw materials and manufactured tools were carried and left at various places in the foraging area. And as a result to this numerous stone cache area were formed from this just like what we talked about in lecture on October seventeenth. He goes on to talk about the possibility of kill site and the way they would have worked, how hominids would carry their tools back for further processing. He talks about how time and energy spent in handling and transporting portions of meat could have been minimized by taking the bones to the nearest cache site, where there remained stone tools and bones from previous visits. These visits were done quickly and this would help the hominids avoid direct confrontation with carnivores. The implications of stone caches are more limited that those of the home base model; nonetheless Potts believes that they are important. Potts goes on to explain how this idea of home bases is different from nonhuman primates. He explains that the use of these sites just for processing for a short amount of time implies that social activity was not their focus as it is in modern day hunter-gathers. At present, the inferences on which it is based imply that there is not yet good evidence for the existence of hunter-gatherer home bases as early as two million years ago.

The second reason is that home base interpretation in accurate with other prominent ideas of human evolution. For example the dietary change of eating more meat, this is viewed to be a significant change in hominid evolution. And the home base view supports this by the numerous amounts of animal bones found at archeological sites. Even more important the use of tools as well supports this theory and the way these humans used and modified their environment. A crucial part of survival is the care of children over a long period of time, and the idea of a home base supports this as well. Potts explains that there is no debate that food-sharing the use of tools and meat eating takes place today among modern humans, but the question is whether this complex of behaviors, existed two million years ago. In order to test this archeological sites can be tested with the data concerning the formation of these and the ecological context of hominid activities.

The link between early archaeological sites and hominid activities has been investigated in depth at Olduvai Gorge and Koobi For a (Potts, 338). Pott's research has focused on six stratigraphic levels at Olduvai, excavated by Leakey. Most of bones uncovered from these sites were broken some into small pieces before they were buried and fossilized. A wide diversity of species were represented: zebra, hippopotamus, rhin

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