Primate archaeology reveals cultural transmission in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus).
Recovering evidence of past human activities enables us to recreate behaviour where direct observations are missing. Here, we apply archaeological methods to further investigate cultural transmission processes in percussive tool use among neighbouring chimpanzee communities in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. Differences in the selection of nut-cracking tools between neighbouring groups are maintained over time, despite frequent female transfer, which leads to persistent cultural diversity between chimpanzee groups. Through the recovery of used tools in the suggested natal territory of immigrants, we have been able to reconstruct the tool material selection of females prior to migration. In combination with direct observations of tool selection of local residents and immigrants after migration, we uncovered temporal changes in tool selection for immigrating females. After controlling for ecological differences between territories of immigrants and residents our data suggest that immigrants abandoned their previous tool preference and adopted the pattern of their new community, despite previous personal proficiency of the same foraging task. Our study adds to the growing body of knowledge on the importance of conformist tendencies in animals.
Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK lydia.luncz@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.
Lydia V
LV
Luncz
Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Taï Chimpanzee Project, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, BP 1303, Abidjan 01, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa.
Roman M
RM
Wittig
Department of Primatology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Christophe
C
Boesch
D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009754:Nuts; D002679:Pan troglodytes / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D053001:Tool Use Behavior
chimpanzees; cultural transmission; primate archaeology; tool use