![]() How does mom do it? A mother chimpanzee in the Taï forest smashes open a coula nut eventually her son Lefkas will catch on. To see the beginnings of culture in other species, says Boesch, "helps us to see what is unique about humans." Even so, Boesch and others argue that the nascent cultural stirrings of our primate cousins may help uncover the roots of human culture, showing that, for example, gregariousness-hunting and foraging together rather than alone -may have spurred cultural development. ![]() And most agree that primates don't seem to be able to build on previous inventions, an ability that "is the hallmark of human culture" and that allows us to develop complex technologies and rituals, notes psychologist Bennett Galef of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Some researchers argue that that is because our primate cousins do not learn as we do, by imitation and instruction. Of course, no primate society can build a mud hut or do any number of other tasks that are relatively easy for humans to master. Although most examples of "culture" among animals involve just one or two behaviors, chimpanzees have dozens of learned behaviors involving tool use, social customs, and calls, says Andrew Whiten of the University of St. Their argument rests on two main kinds of evidence: examples in which one chimp learns from another, and the results of such learning-the seemingly arbitrary differences in habits between chimpanzee groups at different sites. They are turning up increasing evidence that nonhuman primates, in particular chimpanzees, may have a primitive type of culture that bridges the gap between the two definitions. But in the past decade, a growing number of primatologists and psychologists have sought to approach the question more rigorously, defining specific elements of culture that could potentially be observed in animals, then seeking these behaviors in the wild and in labs. Most anthropologists stick to a narrower definition, requiring culture to include language and whole systems of behavior. By this generous definition, bird song dialects and the calls of whales might qualify as animal "culture" ( Science, 27 November 1998, p. ![]() But some biologists have a simpler definition: any behaviors common to a population that are learned from fellow group members rather than inherited through genes. Most people think of culture as encompassing such uniquely human skills as language, music, art, and clothing styles. To Boesch, who is director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, such differences in customs are akin to the use of chopsticks in Japan and forks in France: signs of distinct cultures, in which groups develop their own sets of behaviors based on social ties and shared history. In a survey of chimps throughout Côte d'Ivoire, Boesch found no evidence for nutcracking anywhere east of a river called the Sassandra-N'Zo, even though both nuts and rocks are readily available throughout the forest. Indeed, from December through February, coula nut cracking is one of these chimps' main pastimes primatologist Christophe Boesch, who has studied Lefkas's group at Taï for 20 years, says he watched another young chimp crack nuts nonstop for 5 hours.īut chimps from just a few hundred kilometers away would probably stroll right past Lefkas's dining site. ![]() The ground where Lefkas was sitting is strewn with coula nut shells, the leavings of other chimpanzees' meals. The chimp pops the meat in his mouth and scampers off. ![]() He holds a rock with both hands and a foot and slams it down with a sharp crack on a round coula nut, a bit smaller than a golf ball, which is balanced on a flat rock on the ground. T AÏ N ATIONAL F OREST, C ÔTE D'I VOIRE, W EST A FRICA-At the foot of a buttress tree, in the dappled sunlight of the rainforest floor, a young chimpanzee named Lefkas is working hard for his lunch. Chimps in the Wild Show Stirrings of Culture ![]()
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