Chapter 4 Additional Resources

What Can the Study of Primates Tell Us about Human Beings?

Websites

  • The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada
    http://www.janegoodall.ca/chimps.php
    This website offers an abundance of information about recent research on chimp behaviour as well as information on conservation projects.
  • Primatology.net
    http://primatology.net
    This website offers intriguing insight into historical and contemporary research on primate social, genetic, physical, behavioural and physiological happenings. It also provides a brief description of the field of primatology in addition to brief excerpts of the pioneers in the discipline.
  • “What does it mean to be human?” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
    http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/primate
    This page on the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History website features a wealth of information on primates and primate behaviour, comparing human to non-human primate behaviours in a series of silent, short videos.
  • Orangutan Kutai Project
    http://www.orangutan.com/projects/mawas/
    Many primatologists are involved in conservation work. Canadian primatologist Anne Russon is one of the founders of the Orangutan Kutai Project in Borneo.

Videos

“A Conversation with Koko.” 1999. YouTube video, 4:40. Posted April 2013 by “Beth Gallagher,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk.

This video documents the efforts of Penny Patterson to teach Koko, a lowland gorilla born in 1971, a form of sign language. Patterson maintains that Koko can understand and use 1,000 different “signs.” While there have been many critiques of Patterson’s work, it raises the important issue of inter- and intra-species communication, and it forces us to consider whether cognition and conscience are, in fact, distinctively “human” attributes.

De Waal, Frans B.M. (2012) « Capuchin Monkeys reject unequal pay » YouTube Video (2 :38)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhAd0Tyny0

This short video documents an experiment carried out with capuchin monkeys to see how they responded to ‘unfair pay’ for a task. The video provides a humourous understanding of the human reaction to unfairness and complements the 1999 article on cultural primatology (readings below)

Goodall, Jane. 2002. “Jane Goodall: What Separates Us from Apes.” TED video, 27:25. http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_goodall_on_what_separates_us_from_the_apes.

In this TED talk, primatologist Jane Goodall discusses some of the physical and social distinctions between humans and apes such as chimpanzees. Throughout, she draws upon her own fieldwork among chimpanzees in Tanzania to highlight how primate studies can help us understand our evolutionary history.

National Geographic Orangutan Documentary (YouTube Video 52:07).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grRiDgONILk

Provides an overview of the life and challenges of orangutan in the wild, with several interviews with primatologists and other researchers. Particular details given on the loss of habitat and the struggle to ensure that their populations survive through the use of natural habitats and “jungle schools”.

Rauch, Kristin Liv. “primate classification” YouTube video (25:06).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTjn9JSJV5E

Provides a basic introduction to primate taxonomy, showing different skeletal forms and the taxonomy breakdown for each form in order.

Morris, Patrick. 2009. “Life: Primates.” Bristol, UK: BBC Natural History Unit. DVD, 59 min. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pcm3h.

This collaboration between the BBC and Open University introduces students to the social behaviours of a variety of different Old World and New World primates, including baboons, chimpanzees, and macaques. Particular attention is devoted to the ways in which many primates, like chimpanzees, learn various behaviours (like tool use) from their elders.

Books and Articles

Arnold, Christian, Luke J. Matthews, and Charles Lindsay Nunn. 2010. “The 10K Trees Website: A New Online Resource for Primate Phylogeny.” Evolutionary Anthropology 19: 114–118.

Primate phylogeny moves into the internet age! The authors note that efforts to examine primate behaviours, cognitive abilities, and morphological traits depend on comparisons within and between different primate species. These comparisons are important for reconstructing past behaviours from fossil species as well. Here, they discuss new systematic methods that have created 10,000 phylogenies, or classification schemes, that graphically represent trees, and that are accessible via the internet.

Bradley, Brenda J., and Richard R. Lawler. 2011. “Linking Genotypes, Phenotypes, and Fitness in Wild Primate Populations.” Evolutionary Anthropology 20: 104–119.

The authors note that we will soon have drafts of the genomes for over 20 primate species, including that obtained for humans ten years before. Primatologists are ready to capitalize on this genetic data, to see how genes are tied to behaviour and morphological traits. Bradley and Lawler are particularly interested in the genetic basis for primate adaptation and diversity.

Culotta, Elizabeth. 2005. “GENOMICS: Chimp Genome Catalogs Differences with Humans.” Science 309(5740): 1468–1469.

This article describes genetic research aiming to answer the question of what separates chimpanzees from humans.

de Waal, Frans B.M. 1999. “Cultural Primatology Comes of Age.” Nature 399: 635–636.

Some anthropologists and psychologists have resisted using the term “culture” when discussing non-human primates. As new discoveries were made about complex, learned behaviours among monkeys and non-human apes, these scholars have repeatedly redefined culture to limit the concept to humans. de Waal notes that over five decades of observations overwhelmingly supports that concept that non-human primates such as chimpanzees invent new customs and tools and pass them on through teaching and learning.

Fedigan, Linda M. 2015. “A Brief History of Primatology in Canada.” In The Human Voyage, 2nd ed., edited by Anne Keenleyside and Richard Lazenby, pp. 122. Toronto: Nelson Press.

As the title suggests, this brief synopsis, an addition to the second edition of Keenleyside and Lazenbyʼs Canadian anthropology text book, describes the history of primatology in Canada.

Galdikas, Birute. 2002. Orangutan Odyssey. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

This book describes Galdikas’s more than 25 years among the orangutans of Borneo.

Gordon, Kathleen. 2004. “‘Ape-Ing’ Language: Communicating with Our Closest Relatives.” In Anthropology Explored, 2nd ed., edited by Ruth Osterweis Selig, Marilyn R. London, and P. Ann Kaupp, pp. 17–29. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books.

Gordon considers how teaching chimpanzees and bonobos might give insight to the evolution of language and symbolic communication among modern humans. She opens with the intriguing notion that we might be able to eventually have meaningful communication across species boundaries—at least with our closest living relatives. The difficulties in teaching chimpanzees to communicate are outlined. Chimpanzees cannot engage in vocal communication, so researchers have turned toward using sign language or symbols on computer keyboards. Scholars continue to debate whether ape language experiments represent the use of a “real” form of language by our closest relatives.

Heads, Michael, 2009. “Evolution and Biogeography of Primates: A New Model Based on Molecular Phylogenetics, Vicariance, and Plate Tectonics.” Zoological Scripta 2009: 1–21.

Efforts to date the emergence of primates places them either in the Paleocene using fossil evidence (around 56 million years ago) or the Cretaceous using molecular-clock dates (between 90 and 116 million years ago). Heads uses radiometric dating of tectonic events to argue that primates date back to the early Jurassic (around 180 million years ago). He further argues that primates divided into four major groups, and that the main aspects of primate distribution are tied with the breakup of Pangea as a result of plate tectonics.

Kay, Richard F., Callum Ross, and Blythe A. Williams. 1997. “Anthropoid Origins.” Science 275(5301): 797–804.

The authors examine recent fossil findings that reveal new findings about the earliest anthropoids, a primate suborder that consists of monkeys and apes, including humans. A fundamental evolutionary change that led to the first anthropoids consisted of a shift from a nocturnal (night-time) adaptation to one where members were active during the day.

Lehman, S.M. 2013. “Effects of Altitude on the Conservation Biogeography of Lemurs in South East Madagascar. In High Altitude Primates, edited by S. Gursky, A. Krzton, and N. Grows, pp. 3–22. Cambridge: Springer Press, Developments in Primatology Series: Progress and Prospects (Vol. 44).

In this chapter, Canadian primatologist Shawn Lehman draws upon his fieldwork among lemurs in Madagascar to examine how changing local ecosystems impact primate conservation efforts.

McGrew, W.C. 1998. “Culture in Nonhuman Primates?” Annual Review of Anthropology 27: 301–328.

McGrew looks at two species of nonhuman primates that have been shown through decades of research to exhibit cultural behaviour: Japanese macaques and chimpanzees. He notes that we study cultural behaviour in nonhuman primates to get clues as to how our hominin ancestors may have behaved millions of years ago. Japanese macaques have been observed to wash their food, an innovative behaviour that is taught to their young. Chimpazees use a variety of tools, and differences exist among various chimpanzee populations.

Ottoni, Eduardo, and Patricia Izar. 2008. “Capuchin Monkey Tool Use: Overview and Implications.” Evolutionary Anthropology 17: 171–178.

Reports dating back to the sixteenth century mentioned nutcracking behaviour by capuchins, and this behaviour is well known in Brazilian folklore. Despite that, primatologists have only been studying this nutcracking behaviour for a little over a decade. The authors detail various explanations offered for this type of tool use among different capuchin populations who have different “tool kits.” They conclude that capuchin tool use is not genetically based and that nutcracking is a socially learned behaviour.

Ross, Callum F. 2000. “Into the Light: The Origin of Anthropoidea.” Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 147–194.

Ross considers relationships of anthropoids to other primates, supporting the grouping of tarsiers with anthropoids into the Haplorhini. Ross details the physical changes evident in the shift for anthropoids to a diurnal adaptation, notably in the visual cortex of the brain. Early anthropoids dined on fruit and insects and did not yet have the larger brains that characterized more recent species.

Saito, Aya, Hideko Takeshita, Misato Hayashi, and Tetsuro Matsuzawa. 2014. The Origin of Representational Drawing: A Comparison of Human Children and Chimpanzees. Child Development 85 (6):2232-2246.

The authors compare the drawing of human children with that of chimpanzees in order to understand the underlying cognitive mechanisms for drawing capability. To test these processes, the authors devised two experiments—the first free drawing after being presented with a model; the second free drawing on illustrations of a chimpanzee and comparing them to Japanese children aged 2 to 4.They found that children at the age of 2 imitated horizontal lines successfully, circles at near 3 years of age, and squares at 4 years of age. Adult chimpanzees were able to trace out the lines of the model, but sketching circles or representations of chimpanzees were beyond their capability. Children, by contrast, quickly improved the skill as they aged and were able to imagine missing components.

Steiper, M.E., and N.M. Young. 2008. “Timing Primate Evolution: Lessons from the Discordance between Molecular and Paleontological Estimates.” Evolutionary Anthropology 17: 179–188.

Biological anthropologists depend on the molecular clock to understand primate evolution. One major issue with the molecular clock is that it produces results that do not match divergence times between primate species determined through fossil-based estimates. Steiper and Young do not focus on accuracy or statistical error in their study but rather examine the major theoretical and methodological issues underlying the difference between molecular and fossil estimates of the origins of primate species.

Tomasello, Michael, and Esther Herrmann. 2010. Ape and Human Cognition: What's the Difference? Current Directions in Psychological Science 19 (1):3-8.

We know that apes understand and rely on their social world like humans, perceiving actions in advance from the group and avoiding discord. Humans, however, have the use of language to help them collaborate and communicate far more effectively and consistently, with far more cross-generational learning possible. Human cognition is most strongly distinguished by the adaptation to functioning in cultural groups.

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