Modern Mind

books,
African Genesis
(1961),
The Territorial Imperative
(1967), and
The Social Contract
(1970), Ardrey did much to familiarise the idea that all animals – from lions and baboons to lizards and jackdaws – had territories, which varied in size from a few feet for lizards to a hundred miles for wolf packs, and which they would go to extreme lengths to defend. He also drew attention to the rankings in animal societies and to the idea that there are a wide variety of sexual arrangements, even among primates, which, he thought, effectively demolished Freud’s ideas (‘Freud lived too soon,’ Ardrey wrote). In popularising the idea that man originated in Africa, Ardrey also emphasised his own belief that
Homo sapiens
is emotionally a wild animal who is domesticating himself only with difficulty. He thought that man was originally an ape of the forest, who was defeated by the other great apes and forced into the bush:
Australopithecus robustus,
a vegetarian, evolved into
A. africanus,
a carnivore, who then, as
Homo sapiens
(or even earlier), evolved the use of tools – for which Ardrey preferred the word
weapons.
For Ardrey, mankind could only survive and prosper so long as he never forgot he was at heart a wild animal. 4 The fieldwork that lay at the heart of Ardrey’s book helped establish the idea that, contrary to the view prevailing before the war, humanity originated not in Asia but in Africa and that, by and large, it emerged only once, somewhere along the Rift Valley, rather than several times in different places. A sense of urgency was added to this reorientation, because ethological research, besides showing that animals could be studied in the wild, also confirmed that in many cases numbers were dwindling. Ethology, therefore, became a contributor to the ecological movement.
    Far and away the most influential people in persuading the wider public that ethology was valuable were three extraordinary women in Africa, whose imaginative and brave forays into the bush proved remarkably successful. Thesewere Joy Adamson, who worked with lions in Kenya, Jane Goodall, who investigated chimpanzees at Gombe Stream, in Tanzania, and Dian Fossey, who spent several years working with gorillas in Uganda.
    The Adamsons – Joy and George – were old Africa hands since before World War II, and friends of the Leakeys (George Adamson had been a locust control officer and a gold prospector in Kenya since 1929). Joy, of Austrian birth, was ‘an often-married, egotistical, wilful and at times unstable woman of great energy and originality.’ 5 In 1956, near where they lived, a lion had attacked and eaten a local boy. With others, George Adamson set off in pursuit of the man-eater, which by custom had to be killed because, having been ‘rewarded,’ it would certainly return. A female lion was found, and duly shot. However, three very young cubs were discovered nearby, still with film over their eyes, and were raised by the Adamsons. Two were eventually acquired by a zoo, while the Adamsons kept the other, the ‘plainest,’ named after an equally plain relative, Elsa. 6 Thus began the Adamsons’ observations of lion behavior. These were hardly systematic in, say, a laboratory sense, but the closeness of the relationship between human and animal was nonetheless new and enabled certain insights into mammal behavior that would otherwise not have been made. For example, ‘Elsa’s most remarkable demonstration of understanding and restraint occurred when she knocked over a buffalo in the Ura and was efficiently drowning it. While her blood was still up, Nuru, a Muslim, rushed down to cut the animal’s throat before it died so that he and other Africans could eat some of the meat. For a second Elsa turned on him, but suddenly realised he had come to share, not steal, her kill.’ 7
    In 1958, for a variety of reasons, one of which was Elsa’s growing strength and uncontrollability (she had at one stage taken Joy’s head in her mouth), the lioness was reintroduced into the wild. This, a dangerous exercise for her, was completed successfully, but on several occasions thereafter she reappeared, accompanied by her new family, and for the most part behaved in a docile, friendly manner. It was now that Joy Adamson conceived the series of three books that were to make her famous:
Born Free
(1959),
Living Free
(1960), and
Forever Free
(1961). 8 The many photographs of apparently friendly lions had just as much impact as the