Plant foods and early hominids at site FxJj 50, Koobi Fora, Kenya

Abstract

Plant foods are often assumed to have been important to the diets of Plio-Pleistocene hominids, and yet little paleobotanical evidence exists to help reconstruct early hominid plant food foraging behavior. Evidence for the paleoenvironmental context of one well-studied early Pleistocene site, FxJj 50, Koobi Fora, is compared with data from field studies of the abundance of plant foods in selected modern habitats in Kenya. Examples of the spatial distribution and seasonal availability of some edible fruits near two channels in arid parts of Kenya illustrate ways in which plant food foraging opportunities vary in arid riparian habitats today. This comparison suggests that even the best paleobotanical evidence available for an early hominid archaeological site cannot resolve vegetation reconstructions at a level of detail effective for evaluating site specific alternative models of early hominid foraging behavior.