What Man the Hunted Ignores
In 2003, Semaw and colleagues described “2.6 Million Year Old Stone Tools and
Associated Bones” from Gona, Ethiopia. The assemblages at this site were securely dated using
a combination of 40Ar/39Ar and magnetostratigraphy. Gona is the oldest known site containing
stone tools. Over 700 artifacts and bones were recovered, and the materials “consist of typical
Oldowan artifacts with cores and debitage and associated fragmentary fauna.” Because 500 of
these items were excavated in situ, the authors suggest this is a “primary archaeological
association.” All the cores were bifacial, heavily reduced, and had multiple flaking scars. “Most
striking is the presence at OGS-7 of well-struck, knife-like flakes and deliberately retouched
pieces.” The raw materials available at Gona do not correlate with the tool materials, which
suggests transport and curation. The total absence of naturally occurring chert at the site,
coupled with its extensive presence in the form of tools, “indicates a high degree of selectivity
and hominid preference for fine-grained, high-quality raw materials.” The authors also
recovered an equid calcaneum “with definite cutmarks” and multiple bone fragments which
showed signs of percussion fracturing. Considered together, the tools and bones show “that the
first stone tools were used for processing animal carcasses for meat and bone marrow.”
Because no hominid fossils were discovered at Gona, the identity of the toolmaker is unknown.
Given the date and locale, however, the authors contend that Australopithecus garhi “seems the
best candidate thus far for the hominid responsible for the early activities.”1
In 1999, de Heinzelin and colleagues reported on the “Environment and Behavior of 2.5
Million Year Old Bouri Hominids.” In this article, the authors present “behavioral and
environmental evidence that early hominids used stone tools to butcher large mammal carcasses
in an open lake margin habitat.” The Bouri site is 90 km south of Gona, and the assemblages
described were all recovered from the lower Hata Member. The Hata assemblage was securely
dated using a combination of radioisotopes, paleomagnetics, and biostratigraphy. Although the
authors did not find concentrations of stone artifacts, they did find “isolated, widely scattered
cores and flakes” characteristic of Mode I, Oldowan technology. Given the paucity of tools and
the absence of raw materials, it appears that these tools were transported to the site. While the
toolmaker could not be positively identified, “A. garhi is currently the only recognized hominid
taxon recovered from the Hata sediments.” In addition to bone fragments showing signs of
percussion fracture, several pieces of processed bone were found at Bouri:
 The left mandible of a medium-size bovid shows three successive striae that “are
unambiguous cut marks made by a sharp stone flake, presumably during tongue
removal.”
 The tibia of a large-size bovid “bears cut marks, chop marks, and several diagnostic
hammerstone impact scars.”
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Subsequent studies have confirmed and enlarged these findings. Dominguez Rodrigo, et al. (2005) analyzed a
larger assemblage of stone and bones from Gona, and concluded: “ These sites have also yielded the largest sample
of cutmarked bones known from the time interval 2.58-2.1 million years ago (Ma). Most of the cutmarks on the
Gona fauna possess obvious macroscopic (e.g., deep V-shaped cross-sections) and microscopic (e.g., internal
microstriations, Herzian cones, shoulder effects) features that allow us to identify them confidently as instances of
stone tool-imparted damage caused by hominid butchery.”
 The femur of a three-toed horse (Hipparion) “bears stone-tool cut marks indicative of
dismemberment and filleting.”
The“stone-wielding hominids” at Bouri, the authors contend, were consuming meat: “The
bone modifications indicate that large mammals were disarticulated and defleshed and that their
long bones were broken open, presumably to extract marrow, a new food in hominid evolution
with important physiological, evolutionary, and behavioral effects.” In conclusion, the authors
note additional research is necessary to determine “whether the butchery is related to hunting or
scavenging,” and the Bouri assemblage demonstrates “that a major function of the earliest known
tools was meat and marrow processing of large carcasses.”
Henry Bunn, for his part, has published approximately 20 articles and 2 books on the
subject of hominid meat/marrow consumption. Though it was difficult to decide on any one
article, I finally chose his 1986 study – “Systematic Butchery by Plio-Pleistocene Hominids at
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania” – because it includes Comments and a Reply. In this article, Bunn
reports on the FLK Zinjanthropus “site” (which actually consists of several sites in close
proximity). FLK-Z has been dated to approximately 1.75 million years ago and contains 60,000
bone specimens. The majority of these fragments are unidentifiable, and the taphonomy
surrounding them unclear. Of these 60,000 specimens, 3,500 are identifiable as distinct skeletal
parts belonging to “larger” mammalian taxa. Using the most conservative criteria for identifying
“cut marks” (i.e., those criteria which critics such as Potts, Shipman, and Binford accept as
definitive), 172 of these specimens exhibit cut marks.2
Thus, of the 3,500 identifiable bones, approximately 5% have cut marks, all of which are
consistent with the use of stone tools for defleshing and disarticulating. Many of these bones
(and others) show signs of percussion fracturing, which is consistent with “extensive
hammerstone breakage of marrow bones.” Curiously, Bunn does not discuss the number or
kinds of tools, though one gets the sense it is a low-density in terms of manufactured lithics
(giving rise to the suggestion that stones/bones were transported to these sites). Interestingly,
Mora and Torre (2005) analyzed the lithics from the FLK Zinjanthropus assemblage and found
that unworked percussion hammerstones (which show signs of use) were the dominant tools, and
had been unfairly neglected in previous studies. Bunn does, however, analyze bone frequencies
and finds that limb bones are overrepresented and axial bones are underrepresented (again
suggesting transport). Bunn concludes by observing that “early hominids at Olduvai were
butchering carcasses by an efficient and systematic technique that involved skinning,
dismemberment, and defleshing operations.”
A remarkable array of heavy-hitters commented on Bunn’s article, including (among
others) Stanley Ambrose, Kay Behrensmeyer, Lewis Binford, Robert Blumenschine, Richard
Klein, and Henry McHenry. Richard Potts (1987) commented in a subsequent and separate
entry. Everyone agreed with Bunn’s basic claim: approximately 1.75 years ago at Olduvai,
hominids were using stone tools to access meat and marrow. The arguments revolved around
how the hominids acquired the bones, whether carnivores or hominids accessed the meat first,
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Bunn does not agree with these stringent criteria and contends that an additional 340 specimens are cut marked.
For purposes of his analysis, however, he excludes these from consideration.
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and what role meat/marrow played in these hominids’ diet. Bunn was in favor of hunting (with
considerable meat consumption) and scavenging; Blumenschine argued for active scavenging
(with minimal meat and much marrow consumption); Binford advocated passive scavenging
(with mostly marrow consumption). Potts, after questioning the frequency of bones exhibiting
cut marks, agreed on the “fundamental point” made by Bunn: “Hominids of Bed I at Olduvai did
evidently acquire meat through butchery and were not restricted to eating marrow from bones.
In addition, skeletal-part data and other considerations suggests that hominids both scavenged
and hunted.”
CONCLUSION
There is a truly massive literature on hominids and their use of stone tools to access
animal meat/marrow. Clearly, hominids were not vegetarians and it is specious to contend they
were. Hominids began acquiring and consuming meat/marrow at least 2. 6 million years ago
(and presumably earlier, given the sophistication of the Gona tools). As we move forward in
time, these activities increase in sophistication, scale and scope. There are numerous indications
of hominid hunting/scavenging behavior over the last one million years in particular. Virtually
no one doubts that archaic Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis were devoting
considerable amounts of time and energy to the acquisition of animal proteins.
Indeed, it is interesting to note that Curtis Marean – whom Hart and Sussman (p.75) so
admire for his work suggesting that “early” hominids merely scavenged the kills of saber-toothed
cats – has published extensively on more recent hominids. In response to Binford’s lonely
contention that Neanderthals (and early modern humans) were merely scavenging, Marean
(1998) reassessed all the sites Binford used for his analysis and stated: “[T]he assemblages are
then analyzed in their entirety and a new pattern, consistent with hunting, is revealed. . . . The
conclusion is that there is no reliable evidence for scavenging by Neandertals or early modern
humans.”
It should be noted, however, that neither this conclusion nor the huge body of evidence
regarding animal protein acquisition-consumption force us into an untenable dichotomy. We
need not, in other words, find that hominids were aggressive, bloodthirsty killers whose entire
focus was on hunting. As Ungar, Grine and Teaford (2006) recently observed in a
comprehensive review of diet for early Homo, a more inclusive hypothesis suggests itself:
The fossil, archeological, and paleoenvironmental evidence taken together suggest a
model of increasing dietary versatility with the appearance and early evolution of Homo.
Perhaps then, early Homo, and especially H. erectus, had an adaptive strategy of dietary
versatility. This versatility would have been advantageous in an unpredictable, changing
environment or an environment dominated by many different microhabitats. Perhaps H.
erectus was the first hominin to leave Africa because it was the first with sufficient
dietary versatility to allow it to do so. Evidence of an important role for meat eating is
more compelling for H. erectus. Large concentrations of stone tools and modified bones
after 1.9 Myr combined with thinner enamel may suggest improved abilities to slice and
shear tough foods, including meat. A higher incidence of small pits in the enamel may
indicate the consumption of soft, tough foods such as meat (Teaford & Runestad 1992).
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However, did meat dominate their diets? Not necessarily. The little lithic microwear
evidence we have suggests that early Pleistocene tools were used to process animal and
plant tissues (Keeley & Toth 1981).
Hart and Sussman, in their zeal to debunk an osteodontokeratic caricature that died with
Raymond Dart and Robert Ardrey, have ignored hundreds if not thousands of studies on hominid
tool-use and meat/marrow consumption. Umbrella hypotheses – unless they are driven by
ideology – do not require this kind of omission. Rather, such hypotheses purport to explain
apparently non-conforming data or better explain the available data. Hart and Sussman’s “man
the hunted” hypothesis does not attempt to do either. It simply ignores everything that does not
fit.
This would include the stone tool cut marks on the Stw 53c (late A. africanus/early
Homo) maxilla, which Pickering, White, and Toth (2000) assert is “the earliest unambiguous
evidence that hominids disarticulated the remains of one another,” and the stone tool cut marks
on the 600,000 year old Bodo cranium (White 1986) indicative of defleshing. Human ancestors
were not simply vegetable eating prey animals – they were opportunistic predators not only of
other animals but also of other hominids.
REFERENCES CITED
Bunn, Henry and Knoll, Ellen. 1986. “Systematic Butchery by Plio-Pleistocene Hominids at
Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. With Comments and Reply.” Current Anthropology, 27(5):431-452.
Dominguez-Rodrigo, M. , Pickering, T., Semaw, S., Rogers, M. 2005. “Cutmarked bones from
Pliocene archaeological sites at Gona, Afar, Ethiopia: implications for the function of the world’s
oldest stone tools.” Journal of Human Evolution, 48:109-121.
Heinzlein, Jean, et al. 1999. “Environment and Behavior of 2.5 Million Year Old Bouri
Hominids.” Science, 284:625-629.
Marean, Curtis. 1998. “A critique of the evidence for scavenging by Neandertals and early
modern humans: new data from Kobeh Cave (Zagros Mountains, Iran) and Die Kelders Cave 1
Layer 10 (South Africa).” Journal of Human Evolution, 35(2):111-136.
Mora, Rafael and de la Torre, Ignacio. 2005. “Percussion tools in Olduvai Beds I and II
(Tanzania): Implications for early human activities.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology,
24:179-192.
Pickering, et al. 2000. “Cutmarks on a Plio-Pleistocene Hominid from Sterkfontein, South
Africa.” American J. of Phys. Anthropology, 111:579-584.
Potts, Richard. 1987. “On Butchery by Olduvai Hominids.” Current Anthropology, 28(1):9598.
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Semaw, Sileshi, et al. 2003. “2.6 Million year old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6
and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia.” Journal of Human Evolution, 45:169-177.
Ungar, Peter, Grine, Frederick, and Teaford, Mark. 2006. “Diet in Early Homo: A Review of
the Evidence and a New Model of Adaptive Versatility.” Annual Review of Anthropology,
35:209–28.
White, Timothy. 1986. “Cut Marks on the Bodo Cranium: A Case of Prehistoric Defleshing.”
American J. of Phys. Anthropology, 69:503-509.
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