THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LIFE & STYLE
JULY 24, 2010
By DEBORA BLUM

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… led the anthropologist Louis Leakey, in 1960, to decide that he might better understand the puzzling hominid fossils he was excavating in Kenya if he knew more about the way such proto-humans behaved.

Dr. Leakey decided to send one of his assistants to spend some time observing Pan troglodytes in its natural habitat, obtaining permission to set up a research station in Tanzania. It didn't take Jane Goodall—without even a doctorate as her critics pointed out—to discover that generations of researchers had gotten the chimpanzee story completely wrong.

Part of her success sprang from the fact that she wasn't a trained scientist. Field observations of great apes were long characterized by their Blumenbach-like sense of human superiority. When researchers startled the animals into threat displays, they assumed such behavior was simply an indicator of mindless fury. But Jane Goodall didn't carry that baggage with her. So she made a simple decision—the kind that looks brilliant in retrospect—that she would try to observe as unobtrusively as possible and would make up her mind based on what she saw. …

… Within a year, she had made two revolutionary discoveries. First, like humans, chimpanzees enjoyed a mixed diet that included meat. Second—and more startling—they could make simple tools, stripping leaves from twigs, for instance, to reach into termite nests. Until this point, only humans were thought to be smart enough to make tools. Dr. Leakey recognized the importance of the latter instantly, sending his protégée a triumphant cable: "Now we must redefine 'tool,' redefine 'man' or accept chimpanzees as humans." …

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