Jane arrived at Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania in 1960. At first, she went there with her mother because the British authorities were concerned about letting a young woman alone to the African forests.

The first months were very difficult because the apes were very shy and Jane couldn’t really observe them. After 6 months, she found a place, what is called today as “Jane’s peak”, where she could hide and watch the apes through her binoculars.

At the beginning Jane studied the social structure and behavior of the Kasakela chimpanzee community. Instead of using a strict scientific, impersonal way, Jane observed them with an anthropomorphic approach – she not only wanted to understand them as species but as individuals as well. She gave names to the apes, attributed emotions, thoughts, minds and personalities to them. Although this was an unheard idea that time, Jane found evidence that they form strong, long-term affectionate bonds – they hug, kiss and even tickle each other. She immersed herself in their lifestyle to understand them in a deeper way and found that, that we not only share strong genetic kinship with them but humans and chimpanzees have similar behavioral patterns too.

In that time, it was thought that “humans are the only tool-makers” and chimpanzees follow a vegetarian diet. Jane’s observations were contradictory with these long-established beliefs. At first, Jane saw two chimpanzees eating a bushpig. Later a “fishing” action grabbed Jane’s attention. She saw that David was removing the leaves from a twig to make it a more effective “fishing tool” – without the leaves he could put it into the thermite mound and eat the clinging termites from it. After Jane reported her observation to Leakey, he wrote on the telegram: “Now we must redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as humans!”. This observation had its huge importance because tool use was a defining trait of humans. Thus, it changed the view of humans and our relation to chimpanzees as well. We may have inherited the tool use from our common ancestor with chimpanzees.

It not only turned out that chimpanzees are omnivorous since they eat bushpigs and other small mammals but also that they even commit cannibalism. Their hunting is a cooperative aggressive behavior: they hunt together for small (colobus) monkeys what they share afterwards.

Jane made notable observations of their aggressive behavior what occurs within group as well. Sometimes dominate females kill the children of other females of the group in order to maintain their position. Further, Jane recorded the first long-term primate warfare which was lasting for 4 years. So, war is also not only a human phenomenon, chimpanzees kill members of their rival groups as well.

In contrast, chimpanzees form very strong, affectionate bonds in their troops. Mother-child relationship remains close after weaning and altruism and compassion occurs among chimpanzees as well: Jane saw how a teenage chimp adopted a not even relative orphan and how they supported the one in mourning.

Jane Goodall became a member of a chimpanzee group for 2 years with the lowest ranking status. She was the first person who was admitted in a chimpanzee society.