Jane Goodall traveled to Kenya with no academic experience and very little money. However, she brought with her a devotion to wildlife research and conservation, and an interest she held since her childhood in postwar Bournemouth. Working alongside paleoanthropologists and archaeologists Louis Leakey, Goodall studied the behaviors of wild chimpanzees at Gombe, north of Kigoma in Tanzania.
Goodall rigorously studied the behaviors of wild chimps, documenting their routines, and observing their interactions with others. Goodall noticed grooming rituals, food distribution, fights between and amongst tribes, giving her subjects names to help identify each chimp. One such chimpanzee was David Greybeard. On November 4th he was the primary subject of Goodall’s breakthrough.
"Goodall’s discovery was documented in her academic research, presented in the doctoral program she began with Leakey’s help in 1962, despite not possessing an undergraduate qualification."
Back turned to Goodall, hunched over a mound of dirt, David Greybeard gathered straw sticks, stripping the leaves from them and plunging the straw into the mound. Goodall noticed that the chimp would remove the stick, covered with termites and other insects, using the vessel like a utensil to feed from.
Up until Goodall’s observations, only humans were recognized as toolmakers. Self-awareness and sentience were attributed to the ability of human beings to craft tools to help them achieve their goals, showcasing our ability to exhibit cognitive function beyond our primal programming.
Making and using tools has informed every aspect of human behavior today, not just evolutionary changes such as the anatomy of our hands and feet. Toolmaking was such a rigid marker of humanity that it promoted Goodall’s research lead Leakey to write to her: “we must redefine ‘tool’, redefine ‘man’, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
"Goodall’s observation has proliferated scientific thinking tenfold, paving the way for hundreds of other discoveries, papers, and academic research into the fields of animal evolution..."
Goodall’s discovery was documented in her academic research, presented in the doctoral program she began with Leakey’s help in 1962, despite not possessing an undergraduate qualification. Her first book ‘My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees’ was popular, and Goodall earned her PHD in 1966, pursuing further research at Gombe. Goodall’s primary observations were that chimpanzees could construct and use tools, develop strong paternal and reproductive bonds, and create factions to fight against one another over food, land, and other necessities.
The research was revolutionary in developing our understanding of evolutionary biology and questioning the established narrative that humans were the only species capable of traditionally ‘human’ behaviors. Further research has documented that other animals such as pigs and bird species like parrots and crows use tools. Moreover, Goodall’s observation has proliferated scientific thinking tenfold, paving the way for hundreds of other discoveries, papers, and academic research into the fields of animal evolution and humanity’s connection with our close biological ancestors.
