21 results in Tool Use in Animals
Contents
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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12 - Early hominin social learning strategies underlying the use and production of bone and stone tools
- from Part IV - Archaeological perspectives
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- By Matthew V. Caruana, Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, School of Geosciences and Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, Francesco d’Errico, University of Bordeaux, UMR-CNRS PACEA, Equipe Préhistoire, Paléoenvironnement, Patrimoine Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Lucinda Backwell, Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, School of Geosciences and Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
Current trends in research toward the integration of primatological and archaeological models have provided significant insight into the emergence of tool use from a multidisciplinary perspective (e.g., Wynn & McGrew 1989; van Schaik et al., 1999; Backwell & d’Errico, 2001, 2008, 2009; d’Errico et al., 2001; Mercader et al., 2002, 2007; van Schaik & Pradhan, 2003; Marzke, 2006; Lockwood et al., 2007; Sanz & Morgan, 2007; Carvalho et al., 2008, 2009; Gowlett, 2009; Haslam et al., 2009; Hernandez-Aguilar, 2009; Uomini, 2009; Visalberghi et al., 2009; Whiten et al., 2009a; Chapter 11). Recently, this has culminated in the new “primate archaeology” subdiscipline (Haslam et al., 2009), which has effectively modeled the advantages of incorporating comparative primatological research within the study of early hominin technologies. While this approach advances a unique perspective concerning the evolution of tool use and production, the predominantly ethological focus of primate archaeology has not fully benefited from exploring neuro-cognitive mechanisms in non-human primates and modern humans that might pertain to tool use in the deep past. Cognition remains a critical element in archaeological and paleoanthropological theories regarding the nature of early hominin technologies (e.g., Toth, 1985; Semaw, 2000; Delagnes & Roche, 2005; Stout et al., 2008; Whiten et al., 2009a). Thus, examining the cognitive capacities underlying tool use within the Order Primates is a critical pursuit toward understanding the social and cultural contexts of tool-mediated behavior, and the evolution of technology (van Schaik et al., 1999; van Schaik & Pradhan, 2003; see also Chapters 2, 3 and 10). This chapter presents and explores various primatological perspectives concerning tool use, and cognitive approaches regarding the emergence of technology within the hominin lineage. The infusion of cognitive perspectives within the primate archaeology framework is imperative for defining the biological, sociocultural and ecological contexts of tool use and production, thus enhancing its interpretive potential.
1 - Three ingredients for becoming a creative tool user
- from Part I - Cognition of tool use
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- By Josep Call, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
The bird approaches the transparent vertically oriented tube and looks down its opening with apparent interest. Then it looks at the tube from the side and walks around the tube to look down into the opening with one scrutinizing eye once more. There is a worm located at the bottom of the tube, beyond the bird’s reach. After a few seconds, the bird steps away from the tube, picks up a stick with its beak and inserts it down the tube’s opening. Once inside, it grabs the tool again and applies downward pressure on it so that the tool dislodges the platform that is keeping the worm inside the bottom of the tube. The worm drops free from the bottom of the tube to be picked up by the bird, which quickly flies away.
Observations like this pose a double challenge to researchers in the field of comparative cognition. The first challenge is to explain why some species can come up with innovative solutions while others facing the same situation do not do so. For instance, pigeons presented with the same task as crows and left to their own devices may be incapable of producing the same solution, even after hours of exposure to the same problem. One possible explanation for this outcome is that this crow species, unlike the pigeons, may have a strong predisposition to using tools since this has offered it an adaptive advantage. In fact, the crow is in all likelihood a New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides), well known for their propensity and dexterity at making and using tools to extract embedded food from substrates. The fascinating thing is that the above description is not about a New Caledonian crow, but a distantly related cousin, the rook (Corvus frugilegus). Rooks, unlike New Caledonian crows, do not usually use tools in this way, but they can do so in the laboratory, as Bird and Emery (2009) discovered. This revelation poses a second challenge to comparative researchers: How are rooks solving this problem? What cognitive mechanisms are responsible for the observed behavior and what experiences are necessary for this clever solution to emerge? Since all species are endowed with associative learning mechanisms, a key question to be explained is where interspecific differences come from. Nowhere is this challenge so acute as in the area of tool use in animals.
10 - The Etho-Cebus Project: Stone-tool use by wild capuchin monkeys
- from Part III - Ecology and culture
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- By Elisabetta Visalberghi, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Dorothy Fragaszy, Psychology Department, University of Georgia
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Tool use, according to St Amant and Horton (2008: 1203), is the “exertion of control over a freely manipulable external object (the tool) with the goal of altering the physical properties of another object, substance, surface or medium (the target, which may be the tool user or another organism), via a dynamic mechanical interaction.” Among wild great apes, only chimpanzees use tools habitually, in many varied formats across their geographical distribution, and for diverse purposes (see McGrew, 1992; Yamakoshi, 2004 for a review; Boesch et al., 2009; and this volume). Tool use is observed much less often in wild Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii), and even more rarely in the other wild great apes (Western gorillas, Gorilla gorilla, and bonobos, Pan paniscus), though in captivity all the great ape species use tools spontaneously in flexible and diverse ways. Among monkeys, very few species use tools in natural settings (Macaca fascicularis: Malaivijitnond et al., 2007; Gumert et al., 2009; Cebuslibidinosus and C. xanthosternos: Canale et al., 2009; for a comprehensive review concerning the genus Cebus, see Ottoni & Izar, 2008), although many species occasionally use tools in captivity (for reviews, see Anderson, 1996; Panger, 2007; Bentley-Condit & Smith, 2010; Shumaker et al., 2011). Among monkeys, the capuchins (species belonging to the newly identified genus Sapajus) excel in all respects (Bentley-Condit & Smith, 2010) and their tool use fully fits St Amant and Horton’s (2008) definition.
Tool-using skills of captive capuchins were reported in Europe in the sixteenth century (see Visalberghi & Fragaszy, 2012), long before the first illustration of a Liberian chimpanzee digging for termites appeared in a stamp issued in 1906 (Whiten & McGrew, 2001) or reached the scientific community through the work of Jane Goodall (1964). However, first-hand published reports on tool use by wild capuchins are relatively recent. Fernandes (1991) published the very first account of direct observation of tool use. He observed a wild capuchin (Cebus apella) using a broken oyster shell to strike oysters still attached to the substrate and successfully breaking them open. Boinski (1988) observed a wild male white-faced capuchin (C. capucinus) hitting a snake with a branch obtained from nearby vegetation. These observations each concerned one individual and one event. Habitual tool use (i.e., by several individuals over a period of time) in wild capuchins has been discovered and investigated only in the present millennium.
Index
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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2 - Ecology and cognition of tool use in chimpanzees
- from Part I - Cognition of tool use
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- By Christophe Boesch, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
Humans, as the most technological species, tend to assume that tool use is a sign of higher intelligence and that, over the course of our evolution, tools conferred a decisive advantage in the struggle to adapt to different environments (Mithen, 1996; Wynn, 2002; Wolpert, 2003; Dietrich et al., 2008). As such, animal species that use tools are considered more intelligent, while those that do not are judged as being less intelligent. This amounts to an anthropocentric judgment whereby humans adopt a human criterion to judge the adaptive skills of other species (Barrett et al., 2007; Goodrich & Allen, 2007). However, both phylogeny and ecology must be taken into account before one makes judgments about when and where we might expect tools to be used (Bluff et al., 2007; Hansell & Ruxton, 2008).
Tool use as an adaptation
Physical adaptations
If one remembers that, in most cases, tools are an extension of one’s body that allow an individual to solve tasks that cannot be solved with the body alone (Goodall, 1970; Beck, 1980; Boesch & Boesch, 1990), we must acknowledge that some primate species possess more efficient physical specializations than humans. For example, baboons have very hard, sharp teeth, which allow them to break open hard-shelled fruits that humans would be unable to open without the help of a tool (Kummer, 1968). Similarly, orangutans and gorillas, which are clearly physically stronger than humans, have been seen accessing food resources using sheer force in situations where humans would need to rely on tools (Schaik & Knott, 1996; Cipolletta et al., 2007). In addition to sheer force, it has been argued that hands help in tool use and this would then explain some of the distribution of tool use in the animal kingdom, although we should not forget that birds hold tools with their beaks and some otters use tools as well. Therefore, independent of the cognitive capacities required to use tools, tool use by animals should not be expected to occur in all situations where humans might use them. Our natural tendency to anthropomorphize hinders us from reaching a better understanding of the evolution of tool use, and it is imperative that we look directly to animals for answers about when tools might be beneficial.
8 - The social context of chimpanzee tool use
- from Part III - Ecology and culture
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- By Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, Department of Anthropology, David B. Morgan, Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo Wildlife Conservation Society, Congo
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Although several animal species exhibit some form of tool use (Shumaker et al., 2011), there are relatively few animals which flexibly use a diverse repertoire of implements on a regular basis within their natural environments. As shown in this volume, hominins, chimpanzees, orangutans, some capuchins and corvids are the exceptions. Van Schaik et al. (1999) have suggested that the evolution of material culture in primates is dependent upon the intersection of four primary factors: manipulative skills, cognitive abilities, suitable ecological niches and social tolerance. Although one cannot entirely dismiss the possibility of differences in manipulative skills and cognitive abilities within species, there are intriguing differences in diversity and types of tool use among populations of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) which are not entirely explicable by environmental circumstances, and so have been attributed to social influences (Whiten et al., 1999, 2001; Möbius et al., 2008). With the exception of a few developmental studies, the social context of tool use remains largely unexplored in these apes.
Primates show differing degrees of social cohesion, and varying responses to fluctuations in the availability of resources in their environment. The abundance and distribution of important food resources dictates not only population density, but also social tolerance. Social tolerance varies across species, but may also differ within species (among populations, groups and even individuals). Resource scarcity may incite feeding competition among conspecifics, which could cause primates to avoid spending time in close proximity, whereas bountiful resources may attract conspecifics to forage at the same site. Social tolerance in gregarious foraging could enhance social learning by allowing primates to forage in close proximity to each other, providing a relaxed social atmosphere in which attention may be focused on a task, and enabling subordinate individuals to participate in close proximity foraging without risk of theft or aggression by conspecifics (van Schaik, 2003). The “opportunities for social learning hypothesis” predicts that higher degrees of social tolerance should result in a larger number of customary technical skills exhibited by primates (van Schaik, 2003). An extension of the opportunities for social learning hypothesis is that higher degrees of social tolerance could be associated with the transmission of more complex tool behaviors. Pradhan et al. (2012) have proposed that variation in sociability accounts for intraspecific and interspecific differences in the simple and cumulative technology of chimpanzees and orangutans.
Part IV - Archaeological perspectives
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Part I - Cognition of tool use
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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3 - Chimpanzees plan their tool use
- from Part I - Cognition of tool use
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- By Richard W. Byrne, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution and Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, Crickette M. Sanz, Department of Anthropology, Washington University, David B. Morgan, Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, Lincoln Park Zoo
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
To a cognitive psychologist, chimpanzee tool use is exciting because of the opportunity it brings to examine how apes deal with a range of challenging situations that in humans would invoke planning. By planning it is meant a special kind of problem solving in which an appropriate course of action for the immediate or distant future is worked out by means of mental computation with brain representations of past or present situations (Miller et al., 1960). These include: a working representation of the current situation that presents a problem; episodic memories of specific past instances and events; and semantic knowledge about how things work or how people behave.
Because a tool is not itself a goal-object, but has meaning and functionality only in regard to achieving a goal, problem solving with tools often makes more of the planning process “visible” than is normally the case (Seed & Byrne, 2010). Because a tool often must be selected to meet specific criteria in order to work, or – more telling still – may have to be made from specific raw materials in a particular way, getting an appropriate tool becomes an extra stage in the planning process. Thus, to approach a cognitive understanding of animal planning, studying tool use is by no means the only approach, but it is certainly a good one. Historically, however, understanding cognition has not been the major driving force in the study of tool use in great apes in primatology: that stemmed instead from anthropology, a subject with a very different agenda.
Part II - Comparative cognition
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Part III - Ecology and culture
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Frontmatter
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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4 - Insight, imagination and invention: Tool understanding in a non-tool-using corvid
- from Part II - Comparative cognition
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- By Nathan J. Emery, Queen Mary University of London
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
The ability of animals to use tools has tended to represent a hallmark of intelligent behavior; i.e., those species that use tools are thought to be smarter than those species that do not. However, many species have been described as tool users, including species that we do not traditionally endow with complex cognition (Beck, 1980). For example, sea otters float with flat rocks on their chests onto which they break shellfish; green herons lower bait or lures (feathers, flowers or insects) onto the surface of the water to attract fish, which they then catch. Tool manufacture, rather than tool use per se, may be a finer-grade distinction in terms of intellectual capacity.
Evidence supporting a relationship between tool use and intelligence can be seen in analyses of species of birds and mammals who demonstrate true tool use (i.e., use of objects detached from the environment as tools, such as probes or hammers), have relatively larger brains than species which either do not use tools, or which only demonstrate proto-tool use (i.e., use of objects in situ to facilitate the function of an action, such as dropping shells onto a rock to break them; Lefebvre et al., 2002; Reader & Laland, 2002). It not clear whether these are meaningful relationships due to issues with the data used (see below) or the result of some other factor, such as the diet of tool users being better than non-tool users, which has the resultant effect of causing increases in brain size.
List of contributors
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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11 - From pounding to knapping: How chimpanzees can help us to model hominin lithics
- from Part IV - Archaeological perspectives
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- By Susana Carvalho, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, William C. McGrew, Department of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Are pounding tools the missing link for the origins of technology?
All populations of modern humans (Homo sapiens) have repertoires of tool use and tool making (e.g., Ambrose, 2001). All well-studied extant populations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have repertoires of tool use and tool making (e.g., McGrew, 1992, 2010; Whiten et al., 1999; Sanz et al., 2010). No other living primate has lengthier inventories of tools than humans and chimpanzees (see van Schaik et al., 2003; Ottoni & Izar, 2008; Gumert et al., 2009 for inventories of tools in Pongo pygmaeus, Cebus spp. or Macaca fascicularis). During the Early Pleistocene, populations of hominins living in East and South Africa most likely had wider tool-use repertoires than the ones we have currently identified, which are only the non-organic, that is, non-perishable ones. Thus, archaeologists are mainly left with stone tools and fossilized bones to reconstruct the tool-use repertoire of the earliest hominins (e.g., Semaw et al., 2003; Plummer, 2004). In West Africa, for at least 4300 years, chimpanzees have been using stone tools, namely hammers and anvils, to access the kernels of hard-shelled nuts (Mercader et al., 2007).
Since studies began at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and Koobi Fora, Kenya, stone tools have played a crucial role in inferring the evolution of early hominin behavior, beginning with research on the earliest stone tool industries (Leakey, 1971; Isaac, 1984). Leakey’s typological approach to the Oldowan was based on a continuous sequence of artifacts corresponding to the succession of cultures identified through the Olduvai stratigraphy. Metrics and types were applied to categorize lithics, to provide relative timelines and to make comparisons across industries/assemblages (mainly the Oldowan from Olduvai and KBS from Koobi Fora). In the 1980s lithic studies progressed, as artifacts needed to be understood and described in contexts, as they represent only one part of the hominin activity budget (Isaac, 1981). Isaac inspired a new research direction: integration of lithic studies into a paleoecological approach. This interdisciplinary approach aimed to get closer to site-formation processes and functions, and to understand ranging patterns in hominins (Isaac & Harris, 1997). Isaac (1984, 1986) also proposed an alternative terminology to describe the earliest stone assemblages. All artifacts were placed into three main categories (flaked, detached, pounded) with the aim of finding a simple alternative to terminologies based on post hoc, function-inferred labels (Leakey, 1971).
13 - Perspectives on stone tools and cognition in the early Paleolithic record
- from Part IV - Archaeological perspectives
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
Cognitive archaeology is an unsettling area of study for many archaeologists, and it is unsurprising given the incredible challenges in taking the static remains of past people, most of them from a species separate from our own, and saying something about the processes of the mind that led to those remains. The attraction, however, remains great. As the chapters of this volume show, similarly challenging questions are being asked especially of extant primates, but also interestingly a variety of other living species, with experiments and field observations cleverly designed to probe into what these animals know about what they are doing. Archaeology has the potential to provide some insights into the evolutionary context of the modern cognitive condition, certainly for hominins who for 2.6 million years have left behind a record of their tool use, but also perhaps in a more limited fashion for non-human primates (Haslam et al., 2009).
Of course, the modern human cognitive condition is easily experienced but very difficult to conceptualize, and these difficulties carry over into cognitive archaeology. Wynn (2009), while noting that the field is characterized by a diverse set of theoretical underpinnings, argues that evolutionary cognitive archaeology has been approached from three principle perspectives: the relationship between language and the mind; the relationship between the organization and context of actions and the mind; and representational theories of the mind based on cognitive psychology and neurosciences that look at how the brain actually works. If we ignore the methodological and theoretical debates within the cognitive sciences, as well as issues of communication between two different fields (i.e., archaeology and cognitive sciences), there are still significant hurdles. How does archaeology, a field that depends heavily on theoretical contributions from other fields, operationalize theoretical approaches in testable ways? This is especially the case for the Plio-Pleistocene archaeological record, which is limited in scope and dramatically different from data sets produced in the cognitive sciences. As part of this operationalization, often cognitive approaches to the archaeological record risk not adequately taking into consideration some of the unique properties of this record and especially of stone tools.
5 - Why is tool use rare in animals?
- from Part II - Comparative cognition
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- By Gavin R. Hunt, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Russell D. Gray, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Alex H. Taylor, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Summary
Introduction
Tool use is widespread in the animal kingdom. It has been reported in taxa ranging from insects to primates (see reviews in Beck, 1980; Bentley-Condit & Smith, 2010; Shumaker et al., 2011). However, although it is taxonomically widespread, tool use is relatively rare. The rarity of tool use is surprising given the potential evolutionary advantages that a species can gain. Tools can be used to extract rich food sources such as termites and wood-boring larvae that would otherwise be extremely difficult to obtain. Given the obvious advantages of tool use, an equally obvious question is why tool use is seen in very few species.
A glance across the species that use objects as tools rules out any simple association between the presence or absence of tool use and level of cognitive ability. Tool use is seen in insects, marine invertebrates and fish, as well as in birds and mammals. Indeed, Jane Goodall (1970) recognized that the evolutionary processes underpinning tool use across the animal kingdom will be very different. Beck (1980) emphasized that there was no simple correlation between the presence of tool use and cognitive abilities. Hansell and Ruxton (2008) recently proposed another possible explanation for the rarity of tool use in animals – that tool use was rare simply because of the lack of ecological contexts in which it was advantageous (we call this the lack-of-utility hypothesis). However, we will show here that an “excess of opportunity” clearly contradicts the lack-of-utility hypothesis because in evolutionary terms tool use appears to be potentially much more useful than its frequency in the animal kingdom indicates. Given its potential usefulness, why is tool use so rare?
7 - Why do woodpecker finches use tools?
- from Part II - Comparative cognition
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- By Sabine Tebbich, University of Vienna, Irmgard Teschke, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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Introduction
Niko Tinbergen (1963) proposed four levels of analysis in seeking to explain why a given behavior exists: phylogenetic, functional, developmental and mechanistic. He postulated that only the integration of all four levels enables us to fully understand behavior. Animal tool use initially captivated the scientific world because of its resemblance to our own behavior, creating the impression that the origin of our own physical intelligence could be found in our close – and perhaps even distant – animal relatives. For a long time research on animal tool use has focused on the mechanistic and the ontogenetic level. The main question fueling this research was whether the cognitive abilities of humans and animals are on a continuum or whether one or several qualitative delimiting differences exist. Probably for this reason, most research has focused on primates and specifically on apes, our closest relatives. The anthropocentric approach has been helpful in drawing attention to the phenomenon of animal tool use. However, the empirical research on the cognitive abilities underlying this ability has revealed that even chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), our closest relatives, do not possess a human-like understanding of the physical regularities governing tool use (Povinelli, 2000; Penn & Povinelli, 2007). A major contribution that this line of research has made to the field of comparative cognition is the growing awareness that a dichotomous distinction between high- and low-level processes may not be fruitful (Chappell, 2006). To date, the performance of New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) and chimpanzees in various tasks testing physical cognition indicates that their appreciation of these problems lies somewhere between a high-level understanding of the physical principles and low-level appreciation based on associative learning (Tomasello & Call, 1997; Bluff et al., 2007; Emery & Clayton, 2009; Taylor et al., 2009).
9 - Orangutan tool use and the evolution of technology
- from Part III - Ecology and culture
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- By Ellen J. M. Meulman, Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, Carel P. van Schaik, Anthropological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich
- Edited by Crickette M. Sanz, Washington University, St Louis, Josep Call, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany, Christophe Boesch, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
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- Book:
- Tool Use in Animals
- Published online:
- 05 March 2013
- Print publication:
- 07 March 2013, pp 176-202
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
Commonly referred to as a hallmark of human evolution, tool use is often considered a complex skill. Paradoxically, however, tool use seems to be widespread in the animal kingdom and may consist of fairly simple behavioral actions. In this chapter we try to relate these somewhat contradictory views to the relatively rare occurrence of habitual and complex tool use in wild orangutans, especially when compared to wild chimpanzees. We propose that, in addition to the previously suggested factors (i.e., extractive foraging, social tolerance and intelligence), terrestriality may have been instrumental in the evolution of especially habitual (sensu McGrew & Marchant, 1997) and complex tool use, thus explaining the “orangutan tool paradox.” Our preliminary comparison of eight orangutan and ten chimpanzee study populations (descriptively, via a principal component analysis [PCA], and by testing predictions related to the four factors) does indeed point in this direction.
Defining tool use
Although tool use has been defined in various ways (see Shumaker et al., 2011 for a detailed discussion), we choose to follow the definition of Parker and Gibson (1977):
Tool use is the manipulation of an object (the tool), not part of the actor’s anatomical equipment and not attached to a substrate, to change the position, action, or condition of another object, either directly through the action of the tool on the object or of the object on the tool, or through action at a distance as in aimed throwing.
(Modified from Parker & Gibson, 1977; Sanz & Morgan, 2007)