Previous articleNext article No AccessCurrent Anthropology NewsletterEarly Man in the Soviet UnionT. N. Dmitriyeva, and Glynn IsaacT. N. Dmitriyeva Search for more articles by this author , and Glynn Isaac Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 21, Number 6Dec., 1980 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/202587 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1980 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Excavation in the Upper Member of the Koobi Fora Formation in Kenya has revealed a cluster of stone artefacts and broken up bones which accumulated 1–5 million years ago on the banks of a water course. The assemblage had been preserved by layers of silt. The stone artefacts consist of flakes and flake fragments plus simple flaked cobbles. It has been possible to conjoin individual pieces linking about 10 per cent of the artefacts and 4 per cent of the identifiable bones in pairs or sets. In some cases it seems likely that the specimens were fractured on the spot. Some of the fracture patterns on the bones suggest breakage with hammers, and apparent cut marks have also been found on some bones. There are signs of the presence of scavenging carnivores as well as of tool‐making hominids, and both could have contributed to the workings of a complex input‐output system. Whether the site was a home‐base camp or simply a locality used for meat‐eating and tool‐making remains uncertain. Experimental work is being used in testing alternative interpretations.

Evidence for Palaeolithic diet is critically reviewed, especially that from African sites. Methods of evaluating it, and some of the resulting socio‐economic conclusions, are examined. Hominids, although their ancestral stock was largely vegetarian, have evolved so as to include more protein in their diet; its importance has varied, apparently increasing by latitudinal gradations from equator to pole. Flexible joint dependence on animal and plant foods, establishment of home bases, food sharing, and differentiation of the subsistence activities of the sexes, together constitute an integrated behavioural complex already partly established some two million years ago. Large animals are certainly represented in Lower Pleistocene food refuse; they become commoner in the Middle Pleistocene, when evidence for effective co‐operative large‐scale hunting also first occurs. Other Middle and Late Pleistocene developments, some dependent on the increased geographic range of hominid settlement, are briefly reviewed. In Africa, hominid subsistence was probably broadly based throughout the Pleistocene.