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Chimpanzee material culture : implications for human evolution / W.C. McGrew.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1992Description: 1 online resource (xvi, 277 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780511565519 (ebook)
Subject(s): Additional physical formats: Print version: : No titleDDC classification:
  • 599.88/440451 20
LOC classification:
  • QL737.P96 M44 1992
Online resources:
Contents:
Patterns of culture? -- The prey -- Six key sites -- Other sites -- Non-human culture? -- Studying chimpanzees -- Development of chimpanzee research -- Studies in nature -- Studies in capitivity -- Sites of study -- Eastern chimpanzees -- Central-western chimpanzees -- Western chimpanzees -- Captive chimpanzees -- Methods of study -- Studies in nature -- Methodological issues -- Studies in capitivity -- Collecting data -- Chimpanzees as apes -- Sources and methods -- Patterns of tool-use -- Chimpanzee -- Bonobo -- Orang-utan -- Highland gorilla -- Lowland gorilla -- Gibbon -- Socio-ecology -- Brain -- Hands -- Mind -- Apes and their tools -- Ancestral hominoids -- Cultured chimpanzees? -- Gombe and Kasoje compared -- Case study: Grooming -- Defining culture -- Japanese macaques -- Additional conditions for culture -- Chimpanzees as culture-bearers? -- Culture denied? -- Chimpanzee sexes -- Sex or gender? An aside -- Sex differences in diet: invertebrates -- Case study: Termite-fishing -- Chimpanzees, tools and termites -- Case study: Ant-dipping -- Chimpanzees and ants -- Sex differences in diet: meat -- Case study: Mammals as prey -- Carnivory elsewhere -- Sex and faunivory -- Nut-cracking -- Food-sharing -- Case-study: Banana-sharing -- Other food sharing -- Other apes -- Origins of sexual division of labour -- Origins of tool-use -- Chimpanzees and foragers -- Cautionary note -- Why compare chimpanzees and hunter-gatherers? -- Ideal versus actual comparisons.
Summary: The chimpanzee, of all other living species, is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow, at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits, and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. Chimpanzees serve as heuristic, referential models for the reconstruction of cultural evolution in apes and humans from a common ancestor. However, chimpanzees are not humans, and key differences exist between them, though many of these apparent contrasts remain to be explored empirically and theoretically.
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Patterns of culture? -- The prey -- Six key sites -- Other sites -- Non-human culture? -- Studying chimpanzees -- Development of chimpanzee research -- Studies in nature -- Studies in capitivity -- Sites of study -- Eastern chimpanzees -- Central-western chimpanzees -- Western chimpanzees -- Captive chimpanzees -- Methods of study -- Studies in nature -- Methodological issues -- Studies in capitivity -- Collecting data -- Chimpanzees as apes -- Sources and methods -- Patterns of tool-use -- Chimpanzee -- Bonobo -- Orang-utan -- Highland gorilla -- Lowland gorilla -- Gibbon -- Socio-ecology -- Brain -- Hands -- Mind -- Apes and their tools -- Ancestral hominoids -- Cultured chimpanzees? -- Gombe and Kasoje compared -- Case study: Grooming -- Defining culture -- Japanese macaques -- Additional conditions for culture -- Chimpanzees as culture-bearers? -- Culture denied? -- Chimpanzee sexes -- Sex or gender? An aside -- Sex differences in diet: invertebrates -- Case study: Termite-fishing -- Chimpanzees, tools and termites -- Case study: Ant-dipping -- Chimpanzees and ants -- Sex differences in diet: meat -- Case study: Mammals as prey -- Carnivory elsewhere -- Sex and faunivory -- Nut-cracking -- Food-sharing -- Case-study: Banana-sharing -- Other food sharing -- Other apes -- Origins of sexual division of labour -- Origins of tool-use -- Chimpanzees and foragers -- Cautionary note -- Why compare chimpanzees and hunter-gatherers? -- Ideal versus actual comparisons.

The chimpanzee, of all other living species, is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools, and of the primates they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users and tool-makers. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of culture as originally defined for human beings by socio-cultural anthropologists. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies that live by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow, at least for food-getting. Different communities of wild chimpanzees have different tool-kits, and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the demands of the physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely to be customs based on socially derived and symbolically encoded traditions. Chimpanzees serve as heuristic, referential models for the reconstruction of cultural evolution in apes and humans from a common ancestor. However, chimpanzees are not humans, and key differences exist between them, though many of these apparent contrasts remain to be explored empirically and theoretically.

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