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 are practiced to the extent that they are among Homo sap

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.

Isaac, concentrating on the archaeology, categorized four types of sites at Koobi Fora: type A sites had artifacts (stone tools) without associated bone, type B combined artifacts with bones from a single large animal, type C had artifacts and a "conspicuous patch of broken- up bones" from several animals; type D sites were low density distributions of artifacts, what Isaac elsewhere called "the scatters between the patches." Type C sites were probable home bases. Type D sites were not discussed in his report (but see Stern 1993).

Meanwhile, according to Binford, Glynn Isaac was still telling "just so" stories. And childish ones at that, about "a kind of middle-class genteel proto-human who shared his food, took care of his family, and was on his way to being emotionally and intellectually human." (Binford 1981:295)

Sept, Jeanne 1992, "Archaeological evidence and ecological perspectives for reconstructing early hominid subsistence behavior," in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol 4., pp 1-56.

Binford was pleased to see new thinking, but noted (correctly, in my opinion) that "It is a classic post hoc accommodative argument" which could not be tested because it was designed to fit all the available evidence. (Binford 1985:313)

--- 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.

A more serious challenge to the home base idea emerges from the 1993 paper of Nicola Stern, who argues that the archaeological record is a "palimpset" of debris accumulated over tens of thousands of years. Patches of artifacts and faunal remains, in her view, are simply thicker assemblages of the same stones and bones-- the scatter-- that rest at sites less interesting to archaeologists. There is no special significance to Type C sites or any other; they are not records of particular events, but merely places where chance happened to preserve more objects, and much of what archaeologists think they perceive in the record is incorrect. (Stern 1993) This idea has not been greeted with enthusiasm; comments on her article variously argued that the record was not as imprecise as she claimed, and that various middle range methods--- actualistic studies or "off site archaeolgy"-- would come to the aid of future archaeologists. Since Stern's research began as off site archaeology at Koobi Fora, this assurance has to be wondered at.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Koobi Fora, Glynn Isaac, BP Moreover, Glynn Isaac's, Level Olduvai, Scientific American, Anthropological Research, Walker Leakeys, Nicola Stern, Donald Johanson, home base, koobi fora, type sites, home bases, glynn isaac, homo erectus, york academic press, university press, press 1989, york academic, academic press, cambridge cambridge university, cambridge university press, novel adaptive strategy, fora research project,
Approximate Word count = 2952
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)