The Ethological Roots of Culture

by R.A. Gardner (Editor), Brunetto Chiarelli (Editor), Frans C. Plooij (Editor)

Overview

Can the concept of culture be applied validly to another species? This paper first reports (as a case study) a kind of grooming shown by wild chimpanzees which seems to be a truly social custom. The example serves to introduce the practical pitfalls and potentials of seeking to answer the question posed. Next, the paper focuses on a type of tool-use, hammer-and-anvil, which varies across populations and has important archaeological implications. Broadening further, an exhaustive catalogue of habitual tool-use across all known field-studies is presented. Finally, the evidence of regional and local patterns of tool­ use by wild chimpanzees is assessed. The paper then turns to mechanisms of cultural processes, especially innovation, before ending with responses to recent criticisms by the "anti-culturalists". If concepts such as culture are to help us understand the behavior of our nearest relations, we must avoid simplistic and sloppy extrapolation. Two long-term field studies of wild chimpanzees have proceeded in parallel in western Tanzania, and most of the published knowledge of the natural behavior of individual chimpanzees comes from these. Goodall's (1986) research group in the Gombe National Park has focussed on the Kasakela community of chimpanzees. The project begun by the African Primate Expedition at Kasoje in the Mahale Mountains, initially under the direction of Itani and later of Nishida (1968, 1990), focussed first on K Group, then later on M Group.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792331278
Publisher:	Springer-Verlag New York, LLC
Publication date:	10/31/1994
Series:	NATO Science Series D: (closed) Series , #78
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.06(d)

Table of Contents

Studying the ethological roots of culture.- I. Field Studies.- Evidence of structure in macaque communication.- The central-peripheral structure of the Tanaxpillo colony of stumptail macaques.- Cultural implications of differences between populations of free ranging chimpanzees in Africa.- Precultural behavior of Japanese macaques: Longitudinal studies of the Koshima troops.- Bird song learning: A model of cultural transmission?.- Swarm intelligence and the emergence of cultural swarm patterns.- II. Laboratory Studies.- Mother-pup transmission of a feeding technique in the golden hamster.- A study of social, genetic, and environmental determinants of cultural transmission in the House mouse.- Can chimpanzees use tools by observational learning?.- Social transmission of stimulus recognition by birds, fish and mollusks.- III. Cross-Fostered Chimpanzees.- Ethological roots of language.- Development of phrases in the utterances of children and cross-fostered chimpanzees.- Transmission of human gestural language in a chimpanzee mother-infant relationship.- The use of remote video recordings to study the use of American Sign Language by chimpanzees when no humans are present.- IV. Infant Development.- Is there prenatal culture?.- The earliness and complexity of the interaction skills and social behaviors of the child with its peers.- Learning by instincts, developmental transitions and the roots of culture in infancy.- V. Ethnographic and Historical Patterns.- An ethological perspective on human handedness.- Culture and olfactory communication.- Cultural evolution in man of postures, gestures, and unverbalised social relations.- VI. Paleoanthropological Patterns.- The evolutionary bases of intelligence.- Evolution of human culture: A composite pattern.- Culture and its biological origins: A view from ethology, epigenesis and design.- Causes of our complete dependence on culture.- List of contributors.