Meat eating, hominid sociality, and home bases revisited

We address the interpretation of Plio/Pleistocene hominid ''home-base'' sites in East Africa by integrating data from archaeology, primatology, and carnivore biology. Revisionist views of Plio/Pleistocene sites have emphasized the limited capacities of early hominids and the danger posed by large carnivores. We argue that flight and avoidance were not the most likely strategies for meat-eating hominids facing competition and increased risk of predation. Instead, we suggest, these pressures promoted increased sociality, cooperative protection from predators, and cooperate defense of resources. We present a resource-defense model of hominid land use in which, because meat represents a movable high-quality resource, hunted and scavenged carcasses were transported to focal sites that offered spatially fixed and defensible resources such as water, trees, and plant foods. Repeated use of such focal sites for a variety of diurnal and nocturnal activities would have resulted in a home-base or central-place pattern similar to that proposed by Glynn Isaac. However, we suggest that the use of home bases does not necessarily imply monogamy and a well-defined sexual division of labor.