title: Pre-Columbian monkey tools.
abstract: Stone tools reveal worldwide innovations in human behaviour over the past three million years [1]. However, the only archaeological report of pre-modern non-human animal tool use comes from three Western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) sites in Côte d'Ivoire, aged between 4.3 and 1.3 thousand years ago (kya) [2]. This anthropocentrism limits our comparative insight into the emergence and development of technology, weakening our evolutionary models [3]. Here, we apply archaeological techniques to a distinctive stone tool assemblage created by a non-human animal in the New World, the Brazilian bearded capuchin monkey (Sapajus libidinosus). Wild capuchins at Serra da Capivara National Park (SCNP) use stones to pound open defended food, including locally indigenous cashew nuts [4], and we demonstrate that this activity dates back at least 600 to 700 years. Capuchin stone hammers and anvils are therefore the oldest non-human tools known outside of Africa, opening up to scientific scrutiny questions on the origins and spread of tool use in New World monkeys, and the mechanisms - social, ecological and cognitive - that support primate technological evolution.
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK. Electronic address: michael.haslam@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haslam
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
authors.forename: Lydia V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Luncz
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Staff
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bradshaw
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP 05508-030, Brazil.
authors.forename: Eduardo B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Ottoni
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK; Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP 05508-030, Brazil.
authors.forename: Tiago
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Falótico
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001106:Archaeology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002428:Cebus / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D009754:Nuts; D053001:Tool Use Behavior