Experimental studies illuminate the cultural transmission of percussive technologies in Homo and Pan

The complexity of Stone Age tool-making is assumed to have relied upon cultural transmission, but direct evidence is lacking. This paper reviews evidence bearing on this question provided through five related empirical perspectives. Controlled experimental studies offer special power in identifying and dissecting social learning into its diverse component forms, such as imitation and emulation. The first approach focuses on experimental studies that have discriminated social learning processes in nut-cracking by chimpanzees. Second come experiments that have identified and dissected the processes of cultural transmission involved in a variety of other force-based forms of chimpanzee tool use. A third perspective is provided by field studies that have revealed a range of forms of forceful, targeted tool use by chimpanzees, that set percussion in its broader cognitive context. Fourth are experimental studies of the development of flint knapping to make functional sharp flakes by bonobos, implicating and defining the social learning and innovation involved. Finally, new and substantial experiments compare what different social learning processes, from observational learning to teaching, afford good quality human flake and biface manufacture. Together these complementary approaches begin to delineate the social learning processes necessary to percussive technologies within the Pan–Homo clade.

[1]  A. Whiten,et al.  CHARTING CULTURAL VARIATION IN CHIMPANZEES , 2001 .

[2]  A. Whiten,et al.  From over-imitation to super-copying: adults imitate causally irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children. , 2011, British journal of psychology.

[3]  Bethan J. Morgan,et al.  Chimpanzees use stone hammers in Cameroon , 2006, Current Biology.

[4]  Dorothy M. Fragaszy,et al.  Use of stone hammer tools and anvils by bearded capuchin monkeys over time and space: construction of an archeological record of tool use , 2013 .

[5]  D. Biro,et al.  Cultural innovation and transmission of tool use in wild chimpanzees: evidence from field experiments , 2003, Animal Cognition.

[6]  W. McGrew,et al.  Why Don't Chimpanzees in Gabon Crack Nuts? , 1997, International Journal of Primatology.

[7]  James Steele,et al.  Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking actions: experimental comparison and implications for the evolution of the human brain , 2012, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[8]  Gary T. Garufi,et al.  Continuing Investigations into the Stone Tool-making and Tool-using Capabilities of a Bonobo (Pan paniscus) , 1999 .

[9]  Shelby S. Putt,et al.  THE ROLE OF VERBAL INTERACTION DURING EXPERIMENTAL BIFACIAL STONE TOOL MANUFACTURE , 2014 .

[10]  A. Whiten,et al.  Can Young Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes) Imitate Arbitrary Actions? Hayes & Hayes (1952) Revisited , 1995 .

[11]  Dorothy Fragaszy,et al.  Percussive tool use by Taï Western chimpanzees and Fazenda Boa Vista bearded capuchin monkeys: a comparison , 2015, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[12]  Itai Roffman,et al.  Stone tool production and utilization by bonobo-chimpanzees (Pan paniscus) , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[13]  A. Whiten The scope of culture in chimpanzees, humans and ancestral apes , 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[14]  Josep Call,et al.  BODY IMITATION IN AN ENCULTURATED ORANGUTAN (PONGO PYGMAEUS) , 2001, Cybern. Syst..

[15]  Anders Högberg,et al.  Playing with Flint: Tracing a Child’s Imitation of Adult Work in a Lithic Assemblage , 2008 .

[16]  Kevin N Laland,et al.  Culture evolves , 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[17]  Shelby S. Putt,et al.  The origins of stone tool reduction and the transition to knapping: An experimental approach , 2015 .

[18]  M. Tomasello Cultural transmission in the tool use and communicatory signaling of chimpanzees , 1990 .

[19]  W. McGrew Is primate tool use special? Chimpanzee and New Caledonian crow compared , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[20]  Blandine Bril,et al.  Movement Pattern Variability in Stone Knapping: Implications for the Development of Percussive Traditions , 2014, PloS one.

[21]  Stephen C. Want,et al.  How do children ape? Applying concepts from the study of non-human primates to the developmental study of 'imitation' in children , 2002 .

[22]  S. Malaivijitnond,et al.  The physical characteristics and usage patterns of stone axe and pounding hammers used by long‐tailed macaques in the Andaman Sea region of Thailand , 2009, American journal of primatology.

[23]  D. Stout Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition , 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[24]  K. Laland,et al.  Experimental Evidence for the Co-Evolution of Hominin Tool-Making Teaching and Language , 2014, Nature Communications.

[25]  A. Whiten,et al.  Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) , 2005, Animal Cognition.

[26]  C. Boesch,et al.  Tradition over trend: Neighboring chimpanzee communities maintain differences in cultural behavior despite frequent immigration of adult females , 2014, American journal of primatology.

[27]  Nada Khreisheh,et al.  Extending Experimental Control , 2013, Advances in Archaeological Practice.

[28]  Tracy L. Kivell,et al.  Evidence in hand: recent discoveries and the early evolution of human manual manipulation , 2015, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[29]  Andrew Whiten,et al.  The evolution and cultural transmission of percussive technology: integrating evidence from palaeoanthropology and primatology. , 2009, Journal of human evolution.

[30]  Mary W Marzke,et al.  Tool making, hand morphology and fossil hominins , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[31]  A. Whiten,et al.  Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in chimpanzees , 2005, Nature.

[32]  Andrew Whiten,et al.  Transmission of Multiple Traditions within and between Chimpanzee Groups , 2007, Current Biology.

[33]  A. Whiten,et al.  How do apes ape? , 2004, Learning & behavior.

[34]  D. Stout,et al.  Late Acheulean technology and cognition at Boxgrove, UK , 2014 .

[35]  J. Pruetz,et al.  Savanna Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus, Hunt with Tools , 2007, Current Biology.

[36]  D. Biro,et al.  Emergence of a culture in wild chimpan-zees: education by master-apprenticeship , 2001 .

[37]  Lydia M Hopper,et al.  Observational learning in chimpanzees and children studied through ‘ghost’ conditions , 2008, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[38]  Christophe Boesch,et al.  Is nut cracking in wild chimpanzees a cultural behaviour , 1994 .

[39]  Alex Mesoudi,et al.  Establishing an experimental science of culture: animal social diffusion experiments , 2008, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[40]  C. Boesch,et al.  Mental map in wild chimpanzees: An analysis of hammer transports for nut cracking , 1984, Primates.

[41]  J. Gowlett Variability in an early hominin percussive tradition: the Acheulean versus cultural variation in modern chimpanzee artefacts , 2015, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[42]  R. Sevcik,et al.  Pan the Tool-Maker: Investigations into the Stone Tool-Making and Tool-Using Capabilities of a Bonobo (Pan paniscus) , 1993 .

[43]  Tetsuro Matsuzawa,et al.  Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior , 2001, Springer Japan.

[44]  Josep Maria Vergès,et al.  What novice knappers have to learn to become expert stone toolmakers , 2010 .

[45]  Kevin E. Langergraber,et al.  Genetic and ‘cultural’ similarity in wild chimpanzees , 2011, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[46]  Andrea Ravignani,et al.  Synchrony and motor mimicking in chimpanzee observational learning , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[47]  A. Whiten,et al.  The multiple roles of cultural transmission experiments in understanding human cultural evolution , 2008, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[48]  T. Chaminade,et al.  Acquisition of Paleolithic toolmaking abilities involves structural remodeling to inferior frontoparietal regions , 2014, Brain Structure and Function.

[49]  A. Whiten,et al.  The comparative psychology of social learning. , 2017 .

[50]  H. Roche,et al.  3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya , 2015, Nature.

[51]  A. Whiten,et al.  Cultures in chimpanzees , 1999, Nature.

[52]  C. Boesch,et al.  Primate archaeology reveals cultural transmission in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) , 2015, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[53]  T. P. Neufeld,et al.  Direct Induction of Autophagy by Atg1 Inhibits Cell Growth and Induces Apoptotic Cell Death , 2007, Current Biology.

[54]  Lydia M. Hopper,et al.  The importance of witnessed agency in chimpanzee social learning of tool use , 2015, Behavioural Processes.

[55]  B. Bril,et al.  How do stone knappers predict and control the outcome of flaking? Implications for understanding early stone tool technology. , 2010, Journal of human evolution.

[56]  Satoshi Hirata,et al.  How to crack nuts: acquisition process in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) observing a model , 2009, Animal Cognition.

[57]  Dieter H. Pahr,et al.  Human-like hand use in Australopithecus africanus , 2015, Science.

[58]  A. Whiten,et al.  Faithful replication of foraging techniques along cultural transmission chains by chimpanzees and children , 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[59]  W. McGrew,et al.  Chimpanzees using stones to crack open oil palm nuts in Liberia , 2006, Primates.

[60]  Michael Tomasello,et al.  Evidence for Emulation in Chimpanzees in Social Settings Using the Floating Peanut Task , 2010, PloS one.

[61]  W. Hoppitt,et al.  Social Network Analysis Shows Direct Evidence for Social Transmission of Tool Use in Wild Chimpanzees , 2014, PLoS biology.

[62]  Lydia M. Hopper,et al.  Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of culture for child and chimpanzee , 2009, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[63]  D. Stout Neuroscience of Technology , 2013 .

[64]  T. Matsuzawa,et al.  How does stone-tool use emerge? Introduction of stones and nuts to naïve chimpanzees in captivity , 2005, Primates.

[65]  J. Call,et al.  Design complexity in termite-fishing tools of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) , 2009, Biology Letters.

[66]  J. Kitahara-Frisch,et al.  The acquisition of stone-tool use in captive chimpanzees , 1985, Primates.

[67]  Michael J. Rogers,et al.  2.6-Million-year-old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. , 2003, Journal of human evolution.

[68]  R. Passingham,et al.  Technology, expertise and social cognition in human evolution , 2011, The European journal of neuroscience.

[69]  T. Matsuzawa,et al.  Development of stone tool use by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). , 1997, Journal of comparative psychology.