[language] [Fwd: [evol-psych] Apes left unique record of stone tools]

[H.M. Hubey]

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It looks like language beginnings will go back even further.



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [evol-psych] Apes left unique record of stone tools
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 10:30:25 +0000
From: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Reply-To: Ian Pitchford <ian.pitchford at scientist.com>
Organization: http://human-nature.com/
To: evolutionary-psychology at yahoogroups.com

Science News
Week of March 30, 2002; Vol. 161, No. 13

Wild Chimps Rocked On: Apes left unique record of stone tools
Bruce Bower

Archaeologists, by definition, uncover the remnants of past human
activity.
With the first excavation of chimpanzee stone tools at an African site,
however, the scope of their work has entered virgin terrain.

Chimps transported suitable pieces of stone to the undated site and used
them
to crack open nuts placed on thick tree roots, according to Julio
Mercader of
George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"At least some wild chimpanzees have produced stone [artifacts] and left
behind
an archaeological record of their nut-cracking behavior," says Mercader,
who
directed the excavation. He described the recent discoveries at the
annual
meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society, held last week in Denver.

Researchers previously had reported that chimps living in western
Africa's Taï
forest avidly stockpile stones at places with broad tree roots or stumps
that
serve as anvils for cracking nuts. This activity may represent a learned
behavior peculiar to the local animals, since chimps living in other
parts of
Africa don't use stone implements (SN: 6/19/99, p. 388).

Mercader and his coworkers excavated a Taï forest site called Panda 100.
Trees
bearing so-called Panda nuts grew in this region until 1996, when they
died
out. The chimp artifacts haven't been dated yet.

Full text
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020330/fob2.asp





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