But at the same time, if I clearly state that chimps can grab a rock better than humans and you reply back asking for a citation about how chimps can make better tools than humans, I know the problems in communication can’t be all
mine.

Sober up, come back and say something that is a)understandable, b) interesting and c) not annoying, and I’ll let you keep playing.

At this point you are quickly crossing the line from crazy flint knapper who read some stuff to that of a Troll. If the stuff you have to say is so overwhelmingly important that you’ll blurt it out regardless of the conversation you are supposedly participating in, like a drunk sitting on the stool at the bar two hours after the game to whom no one can speak because he just spits in your face while ranting about that bad call in the third inning,then start a blog of your own. It is not hard.

If, rather, you prefer to come here, blather and dither to the point of distraction, and then begin to insult me, you are gone. I do not maintain this blog for your amusement. It is for my amusement. And you are no longer amusing.

Your future comments will be monitored for content and tone prior to being posted.

Well, if I was right about the protobifaces, then you can take it to the bank I’m right about the baboon avoiding crocs at the edge of the water hole by digging away from it.

But not enough forethought for the baboon or the chimp digging away from water to warrant claiming them mentally
able to make the new and improved Oldowan protobifaces.

So it looks like Roache, Wynn, and Mary Leakey are getting
“getting slapped upside the head” right along with me.

Think they will get a shot at peer review of Laden’s case?

There is going to be a paper on the simple Oldowan, isn’t
there?

I too am very interested in baboons digging wells away from a croc infested river. But if it is true, and it implies forethought and all that, it strengthens, not weakens, Laden’s case.

Kibunjia, also in that seminar and in the field with us that year, originally work the Lokalalie material, and that is when I worked with it in my own limited way as well.

Maybe I’m just thick, but I’m still not getting your point. Are you saying (seems to me that you are) that there are two kinds of being … everything else and humans, and your work with making lots of bifaces assures us that chimps are firmly in the other camp, indistinguishable from elephants and whatever, and humans in the other?

You have misunderstood. I’m questioning your bringing chimps into this and saying the reason they failed at tool making is because of their hands. You are wrong about Oldowan being simple enough for chimps to understand. That is my only point about your article so far.

“I do think you are abysmally incorrect when you equate the differfent tool making examples you give as though they were all the same. Why would they be? That’s absurd.”

I’m not. I demonstrated that what chimps are doing *is simple*
and Oldowan is *not* simple enough for chimps or any of the other tool using creatures to master.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. You said “chimp-like”
and I’m saying “human-like” is 10X closer to the facts.

“So, what is your point? That Oldowan technology = super high level just like acheulean, and only humans can do that? Intersting. That leaves one million years of fossil record with no brain size changes and only chimp-like apes walking around making oldowan technologies.

Well, take a look at the dismal record of a million plus
years of Oldowan-like in SE Asia. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t do better with larger brains, they just didn’t because flakes
worked just as well for what they needed. Argue with Wynn about it, I see what he sees….a seven year-old-making bifaces and by extension protobifaces. No chimps can learn the language of a 7-year-old, why would they be able to master conchoidal fracture etc.?

“Which fits my model rather well.

So, tell me what page I can find the baboons avoiding the crocs in Kumer’s monograph. Its not that I don’t believe you. I’d just like to read about it!”

Again, I said “monkeys” dig for water and I gave you a monkey digging for water. I don’t see what Kumer has to do with that. I can give you a baboon digging water to avoid crocs, who cares what the species the baboon is? I have no idea what Kumer might think. But, I would be interested to
know why you think a well ten feet from a river means chimps can master Oldowan tech, the mental part…
“chimp-like” and “mental/neurological”

Semaw 2000
The World’s Oldest……
Journal of Archaeological Science
27, 1197-1214

Page 1206 Fig. 6: 2, 5, and 8 for starters.

Olduvai V monograph page 2 beds I and II, “proto-bifaces” page 5
No need to cite it, you probably already have it.

One more thing. I have probably made (1000s) more bifaces than you in the last 19 years. Each and every one of them went through the same process, at an early stage, as seen at 2C, before they ended up the finished product.

Easy to test all this, round up some Harvard undergads and I’ll give them the test this time. We’ll see how they do
in 2010. In fact, you can audit also, bet I can flunk you out also!

I do think you are abysmally incorrect when you equate the differfent tool making examples you give as though they were all the same. Why would they be? That’s absurd.

I was unaware that the Hamadryas baboons were evading crocs. That’s interesting. I shall await documentation that of that. (If I was not on the second floor with my leg attached to a machine I’d jump up and grab Kummer off the shelf, but that’s not happening just now!)

So, what is your point? That Oldowan technology = super high level just like acheulean, and only humans can do that? Intersting. That leaves one million years of fossil record with no brain size changes and only chimp-like apes walking around making oldowan technologies.

Which fits my model rather well.

So, tell me what page I can find the baboons avoiding the crocs in Kumer’s monograph. Its not that I don’t believe you. I’d just like to read about it!

Exactly, just like the monkey nut smasher, the sea otter who uses and anvil and a hammerstone, and most of all, the woodpecker finch who uses a self-trimmed twig to fish for
bugs in a hole in a tree, all just as chimps do for termites, and like
chimps, all too stupid to make a 2C core (Kanzi, if you are reading this, I apologize for the derogatory remark, I’m just calling a spade a spade).

“BTW, the chimps that dig wells …. they are not digging for water. They are digging the wells, from which they drink, 10 to 20 meters away from a river from which they could easily drink.

Why do you suppose they do that?”

For the same reason the baboons do it, to keep from being a croc meal.

Well, because of a remarkably human-like bit of forethought and planning. I’ll let you guess the reason!!!

Too late, like some Bushmen, I also camp two km from the water, I don’t want to be croc bait either or trambled by a hippo at night.

Now I have one for you.
Why do you suppose chimp youngsters take 7 years at their
mothers side in order to learn the termite-fishing trade?

Have you seen the material in question? Have you excavated, studied, handled very much ESA material?

I don’t know of a single ESA assemblaged that does NOT have one or more researchers pulling for great minds at work in said assemblage. I challenge the premise, I do not question the conclusion.

What are these proto-handaxes of which you speak?