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Scavenging Defeats the Homebase Hypothesis

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)

In Binford’s view of the data, hominids were the scavengers which came last to the feast, even behind the ants, and used casually found stones to break open marrow bones. There were no base camps. There was no evidence of food sharing. Even evidence of purposeful tool making was suspect before Homo erectus arose. Later on in his career, Binford decided that there was no reliable evidence for big game hunting until after the advent of modern humans; as predators Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis were no more to be feared in the field than a troop of modern cub scouts– which apparently they sometimes resembled. (Binford 1984, 1986)

Given this degree of doubt, it is not surprising that Binford was equally unimpressed by the work of Isaac’s students and associates. Potts, Shipman, Bunn, Behrensmeyer, Walker, Leakeys young and old– all had failed to be sufficiently stern and analytical. True, they’d learned over the years to speak soberly of proto-human scavenging rather than big game hunting and of the need for middle range theories and “actualistic” experiments. They had swiped– without attribution, of course– the best of his ideas. But they had not truly repented. With the partial exception of Potts, they still found home bases and tool making in the data. They saw the behavior of modern Kalahari bushmen re-enacted in the Pleistocene dust. They all had disgusting book contracts and speaking roles in PBS specials. There wasn’t a vegetarian among them.

Which is snide. Reviewing his contributions, Binford had undoubtably been correct in calling for more objective examination of the evidence and for studies of the processes which had created the archaeological record. He had put his principles into practice by studying hunting and settlement patterns among the Nunamuit Eskimos and his prediction that lower Pleistocene hominids were more scavengers than hunters has achieved the status of conquering orthodoxy. A cynic could argue his predictions owed as much to guess as theory but he had been right about as often as wrong– which was a respectable batting average.

And at the end, he had even beaten an admission out of Glynn Isaac that food-transport was not necessarily proof of food sharing and that “the hypotheses about early hominid behavior I have advanced in previous papers made the early hominids seem too human.” Henceforth, the term “home base” would be shunned in favor of “central-place- foraging.” (Isaac 1983)

Summing Up

But even in defeat, the points Isaac had made in 1972 held. Archaeological data from the far ends of the Old Stone Age is sparse, is incomplete, and is potentially misleading; most of it hasn’t been known very long, and there aren’t that many people to evaluate it. It is simply not realistic to ask that it all be analyzed as rigorously as late 20th century census statistics.

Moreover, most humans now live in urban environments. We do not live in splendid isolation and scatter when we hear the leopard’s cough. We are possessed of families and kin. We place communal meals and gatherings at the center of our social life. We are the product of greatly enlarged human gathering points. The home base is part of our heritage and the point at which it or “central place foraging” began to shape our existence still needs to be identified.

If not the Lower Paleolithic, when?

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References

Ardrey, Robert 1976, The Hunting Hypothesis, New York, Bantam

Binford, Lewis R. 1981, Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths, New York, Academic Press

— 1984. Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth, New York, Academic Press.

— 1985, “Human ancestors: changing views of their behavior,” in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, vol. 4, pp 292-327. Reprinted in Debating Archaeology, New York, Academic Press, 1989.

— 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.

Campbell, Bernard 1966, Human Evolution: An Introduction to Man’s Adaptations, Chicago, Aldine

Day, Michael H. 1986, Guide to Fossil Man, 4th Edition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press

Goodall, Jane. 1986, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Cambridge, Harvard University Press

Isaac, Glynn Ll. 1972, “Early phases of human behavior: models in Lower Paleolithic archaeology,” in Models in Archaeology , David Clark (ed.) pp 167-200. London, Methuen & Company, 1972.

— 1978,

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