Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA02443 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 28 May 2002 15:44:33 +0100 Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 07:39:34 -0700 From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net> Subject: Re: Report: chimps used simple tools 5 million years ago To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-id: <3CF396A6.1AEC7019@pacbell.net> Organization: Saybrook Graduate School X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en]C-CCK-MCD {Yahoo;YIP052400} (Win95; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en,ja References: <570E2BEE7BC5A34684EE5914FCFC368C10FD13@fillan.stir.ac.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Vincent and Ray,
Ray:
> <When I brought it up previously I think Wade asked whether perhaps
> the
> > chimps had picked it up from humans. It couldn't have been ruled out, but
> >
> > the difference in tool size suggested that the chimps at least had the
> > intelligence to modify something they observed humans doing. Based on
> > what
> > CNN is reporting was in the 'Science' article chimpanzees would have had
> > to
> > have picked it from 'ardipithecus ramidus' (no I'm not that good. I had to
> >
> > look it up.) Perhaps primitive tool use started with the common ancestor
> > of chimpanzees and humans.>
> >
Vincent:
> This is an interesting question, and again one difficult to find out
> from the fossil/archseological record. If it was possible though, putting
> cultural transmission back several million years really adds to the cultural
> evolution argument (a bit like the geological age of the earth gave natural
> selection plenty of time to work).
>
What is a tool? Anything that is used instrumentally, right?
I suspect that tool use antedates the chimpanzee-human split. On TV a
few years ago I saw a neat example by a Japanese macaque. Researchers
had placed a goodie (fruit, I think) inside a large, transparent
cylinder, so that the macaques could see it but not reach it. One of
them solved the problem neatly. He picked up a young macaque and stuffed
him inside the cylinder. When the youngster grabbed the treasure, the
adult pulled him out and took it away. ;-)
Best,
Bill
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