|COOKIES: By using this website you agree that we can place Google Analytics Cookies on your device for performance monitoring.|
The cultured chimpanzee: nonsense or breakthrough?
If you have a question about this talk, please contact philosoc.
Note new start time of 6.00pm
Culture is said to be one of the defining characteristics of humanity, but to what extent, if at all, are there other cultural creatures? To some critics, the idea of ape culture is untenable, as (e.g.) they lack language. To others, culture (i.e. social learning) is widespread, in many animals from songbirds to whales. Some of these issues are semantic or definitional, but productive, objective methods can be applied to ethological data. Cultured apes may present useful models for inferring the evolutionary origins of hominin culture. I present data (natural history, ethnography, ethnology) from studies of wild chimpanzees across Africa, emphasising not only cross-populational variation but also species-typical universals. Examples come from both material (e.g. lithic technology used in extractive foraging) and non-material culture (e.g. customary performance of arbitrary social grooming patterns). I conclude with recent findings on chimpanzee material culture in the past, i.e. primate archaeology.
This talk is part of the Cambridge Philosophical Society series.
This talk is included in these lists:
Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.
Other listsCentre for Smart Infrastructure & Construction Are there limits to evolution? Medieval Economic and Social History Seminars
Other talksEvolution and coordination of the mitochondrial protein synthesis machinery Private evening tour of Cambridge University Botanic Garden The Anne McLaren Lecture Saved by the British Empire: how the US escaped the Great Depression Learning to see with deep learning architectures for localisation and scene understanding 'The Power of Families in Preventing Radicalization -- a bottom up Security Strategy'