Chimpanzees bonobos can make stone primitive tools Bashny.Net

Some of the chimpanzees bonobos can make stone primitive tools similar to those that were found in ancient human cultures.

It is believed that the monkey started to become a man, when he learned not only to use tools, but to create them. Of living great until recently, the ability to produce instruments was observed only in the common chimpanzee: the monkeys are creating for their needs something like spears and hammers. However, other chimpanzees, bonobos, who by nature are like closer to humans, such skills are demonstrated only in captivity.





In the mid-1990s, researchers were able to train bonobos, male and female, to handle the stones so that they could cut the rope or to tear the leather cover, which is closed on top of a bowl of food. Monkeys, however, did not stop, and on his own initiative continued to explore ways of using cut stones. Scientists from the University of Haifa (Israel) reported that bonobos were able to use stone tools for breaking branches and digging. When the chimp tried to pick open the log, they don't just beat on the tree with a stone, but also used the stones as a drill, an ax and a wedge, trying different ways to increase the gap in the wood. And to dig hard ground, bonobos used treated and untreated stones as excavation and dredging devices.

Tools that APE for this made was surprisingly similar to the objects of the Oldowan culture characterized by ancient primitive stone tools. Olduvai cutters, scrapers and svitlovodskyi artifacts, bearing the traces of the rough treatment, remarkably similar to those things that we've done for myself bonobos. From which we can conclude that our common ancestor with bonobos, who lived about 4-7 million years ago, already possessed the necessary "labor" skills. And this, of course, makes some important amendments to the human evolution.







Here, however, there is one "but". Chimpanzee-the male (one of two monkeys who amazed researchers with their abilities) all my life spent together with people. In addition, his mental level was initially higher than the average Bonobo. His girlfriend was much less prone to the creation of tools, and a large part of what she was doing, intended for simple digging in the ground. The researchers observed another five bonobos, but none of them showed inclination to "toolmaking", although chimpanzees freely manipulated wooden guns and rough stone.



In short, we cannot exclude the fact that his intelligence and wit two monkeys required a special combination of circumstances: living among the people, good genes, etc. on the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that such glimpses of genius can happen in nature. In the near future the authors are going to test whether other monkeys can learn skills from the more advanced relatives. If bonobos will be able to learn from each other, it will force a new look at the evolution not only of man, but the living great apes.

 

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