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Chimpanzees Exhibit Advanced Tool-Making Skills in Gombe
A collaborative study by a diverse team from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Jane Goodall Institute in Tanzania, the University of Algarve and the University of Porto in Portugal, and the University of Leipzig, has unveiled that chimpanzees inhabiting Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania demonstrate a sophisticated level of engineering in their tool-making endeavors. The researchers found that these animals intentionally select specific plants that yield more flexible materials, enhancing their effectiveness when fishing for termites.
Published in the journal iScience, these findings could significantly advance our understanding of the technical capabilities related to the creation of perishable tools, a facet of human technological evolution that remains largely uncharted.
Termites serve as an important dietary component for chimpanzees, offering energy, fat, vitamins, minerals, and protein. To successfully extract these insects from their mound habitats, chimpanzees rely on slender probes. The complexities of the termite mounds, featuring intricate tunnel systems, led scientists to propose that flexible tools would be more efficient than rigid ones in accessing the termites.
To investigate this hypothesis, lead researcher Alejandra Pascual-Garrido utilized a portable mechanical testing device in Gombe, measuring the bending force required for plant materials favored by the chimpanzees versus those that were available but not utilized. The results indicated that the plant species typically ignored by the chimpanzees were 175 percent stiffer than the plants they preferred.
Moreover, among the flora located near the termite mounds, the plants selected frequently by the chimpanzees exhibited greater flexibility compared to those that went unused.
“This represents the first thorough evidence that wild chimpanzees intentionally choose tool materials for termite extraction based on their mechanical properties,” states Pascual-Garrido, who has been researching the raw materials utilized in chimpanzee tools in Gombe for over ten years.
Interestingly, certain plant species, such as Grewia spp., are also used by chimpanzee populations for termite fishing in locations as far as 5,000 kilometers from Gombe. This suggests that the preferences for certain plant materials might stem from fundamental mechanical properties, indicating that a basic understanding of engineering could be integral to chimpanzee tool-making culture.
This discovery posits that wild chimpanzees might possess a form of “folk physics”—an inherent ability to comprehend material characteristics, enabling them to select the most appropriate tools for their foraging activities.
Their adeptness at natural engineering transcends simple trial and error; chimpanzees deliberately choose materials with mechanical traits that enhance the efficiency of their foraging tools.
Dr. Alejandra Pascual-Garrido, a research affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, remarked, “This innovative approach, merging biomechanics and animal behavior, provides a clearer view of the cognitive processes involved in chimpanzee tool-making, particularly in how they assess and select materials based on their functional attributes.”
These findings prompt critical inquiries regarding how this knowledge is acquired, preserved, and transmitted through generations. Observational learning, where younger chimpanzees watch and imitate their mothers’ tool use, may play a significant role in this process. Additionally, it raises questions about whether the principles of mechanical selection are also applied by chimpanzees for crafting other foraging implements, such as those used for ant consumption or honey harvesting.
‘This research carries profound implications for understanding the evolution of human tool-use capabilities,’ explains Adam van Casteren from the Department of Human Origins at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, an expert in biomechanics and evolutionary biology. ‘Though materials like wood seldom survive archaeological examination, the fundamental mechanical principles guiding effective tool construction remain consistent across both species and historical timelines.’
By investigating how chimpanzees select materials based on structural and mechanical attributes, we can glean insights into the physical limitations and requirements that would have influenced early human tool use. Adopting a comparative functional perspective offers new avenues for exploring aspects of primordial technology that do not persist in the archaeological record.
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