Early Hominid Activities at Olduvai: Foundations of Human Behaviour (Foundations of Human Behavior) Book

The earliest sites at Olduvai Gorge (Bed I) are among the best documented and most important for studies of human evolution. The aim of this book is to investigate the behavior of early hominids at Olduvai using not only the traditional data of stone tools and animal bones, but by incorporating the results of recent work in taphonomy (how living animals become fossils), the behavior of modem mammals, and a wide range of ecological theory and data. Assumptions and views conventionally adopted by archeologists and others in their interpretation of the early Olduvai sites are carefully examined. The dominant interpretive model for the artifact and bone accumulations at Olduvai and other Plio-Pleistocene sites has been that they represent "home bases," social foci similar to the campsites of human hunter-gatherers. Based on his study of the Olduvai excavations, fauna, and tools, Potts fully lays out the problems with the home base model and proposes alternative views. A new interpretation for the Olduvai sites- that they represent stone caches where hominids processed carcasses for food-is shown to have important implications for our understanding of hominid social behavior and evolution.Read More