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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 panics) 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 sapiens sapiens. (Isaac 1978) He also noted tool use both for gathering foods and for processing them for consumption, and different modes of social behavior, including long term pairing bonds ("marriage") between male and female humans and complex rules of kinship and interpersonal behavior.
Many or all of these differences, Isaac felt, analyzing the archaeological data -- primarily broken stones and bones and geological reconstructions of ancient landscapes -- had been established at some point between 2. 5 and 1. 5 million years BP. Moreover, rather than being incidental, they were part of "a novel adaptive strategy" which led to modern Homo sapiens. Earlier researchers had attempted to establish sequences for the appearance of modern human characteristics -- movement to the savanna, bipedalism, tool use, hunting, brain enlargement, etc. (e. g. , Campbell 1966) To Isaac, these "simple additive models" were untenable since some of the behavior to be accounted for was already present if only in primitive form in the repertoire of wild chimpanzees.
As early as 1971, he argued in favor of integrated models. "Integrated growth is a better analogue than chain reaction. Thus I would favor models involving concurrent development with mutual reinforcement of adaptive advantages by matching changes in all components, and from this stance I would argue that hunting, food sharing, division of labor, pair bonding, and operation from a home base or camp, form a functional complex, the components of which are more likely to have developed in concert than in succession. It is easy to see that tools, language, and social cooperation would fit into the functional complex as well, and very likely had equally long development histories within the overall system. " (Isaac 1972) Isaac's intuition was probably reinforced by his Ph. D. research at Olorgesaile, a Homo erectus site in Kenya. Olorgesaile, dated to between 900, 000 and 400, 000 years ago, almost certainly did function as a home base (Potts 1988: 292).
Moreover, it was discovered and first excavated by Louis and Mary Leakey, who saw evidence of home bases ("living floors") at a number of hominid-formed sites in East Africa, including some in Olduvai Gorge. No doubt this common-sense interpretation, which in some respects goes back as far as 1933 to Solly Zuckerman (Potts 1988: 251), had rubbed off on Isaac, but he had also become convinced that lower Paleolithic artifact assemblages were peculiarly difficult to interpret because of low sample densities which produced erratic and potentially misleading data. Discussing this in his 1972 paper, he went on to suggest that paleo archaeologists were best employed searching "for regularities in the data that are indicative of widespread states and or major evolutionary trends, " and that "the study of occupation sites and their contents seems more promising than preoccupation merely with artifact assemblages. " (Isaac 1972: 200) He predicted a shift towards behavioral models. In 1977 Isaac published a monograph on Olorgesaile. Lewis R. Binford, reviewing it that year in the Journal of Anthropological Research, was critical, later saying, "While Isaac was an innovator in considering the integrity of deposits yielding traces of early man, he never questioned that the associations among the items found in such modified deposits were all indicative of hominid behavior.
He simply accepted the conventional 'wisdom' that they were present because hominids had caused the association. " (Binford, 1985: 301) The part of conventional wisdom that most annoyed Binford was evidently what another author called "the hunting hypothesis" (Andrew 1976). Already skeptical about Neanderthal'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. 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 taxonomy and went on to related careers -- too many to name here.
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). As of 1975, seven major type A sites had been found, one type B, and five type C sites. The oldest of the latter is the "KBS" site, (somewhat redundantly titled, since KBS stands for Kay Behrensmeyer Site), where the archaeological material rests between two layers of volcanic tuff, the upper layer of which is in fact the infamous KBS tuff that so enlivened Richard Leakey's existence. The age is about 1. 9 million years, and the site can be attributed to hairlines of one sort or another. (Day 1986). (Other type C sites at Koobi Fora are dated at between 1. 5 million and 1. 2 million years and were probably created by Homo erectus. ) The KBS site is a former stream bed; silt preserves the impression of tree leaves which fell into puddles. The patch was estimated at 12 to 15 meters in diameter; about half remained for excavation when it was found.
The diggers uncovered about 200 stone tools and manu ports and "a scatter" of broken bones from various animals: waterbuck, gazelle, porcupine, pig, and hippopotamus. For Isaac, there was "good circumstantial evidence for regarding it as a fossilized remnant of a hominid home base. " However, the summary noted that such conclusions were "tentative" and "speculative. " (Isaac and Harris 1978: 85) In his Scientific American article that year, using the same data, Isaac was much less tentative. "A study of the context of the early African artifacts yields unique clues, " he noted, "both to the ecological circumstances of the proto-human toolmakers and to aspects of their socio-economic organization. " And: "Excavation of these proto-human sites has revealed evidence suggesting that 2 million years ago some elements that now distinguish man from apes were already part of a novel adaptive strategy. " (Isaac 1978: 290) Despite this, he backed off from broader claims of hunting at Koobi Fora, with the remark that "Given the low level of stone technology in evidence, I am inclined to suspect scavenging... " It was even probable that "the first toolmakers lacked the highly developed mental and cultural abilities of more recent humans. " Whether these reservations were noticed by the typical reader is doubtful. With the imprimatur of Scientific American (and frequent reprinting of the article in years to come) the home base hypothesis had jumped from beyond the archaeological and paleo- anthropological community to the general public. For the next ten years or so, it would be treated virtually as fact by popularizer's, interested laymen, and more than a few professionals.
Second Generation Research on Homebases 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...
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