Chimpanzees have a bag full of tools. Hammers, spears, cleavers and sponges are just some of the implements that wild chimpanzees in Africa have been using.
Modified stones, twigs, leaves and other natural materials are used by chimpanzees to groom, access food, throw as missiles, or communicate. Chimpanzees in different parts of Africa make and use different tools depending on the availability of local materials.
Professor William McGrew, from the University of Cambridge, has found that chimpanzees in Gabon have a tool set of five objects in the form of stones, sticks and leaves. These can be used in combination as pounders, perforators, enlargers, collectors, or swabs, in order to get hold of food that may be hidden, such as honey in a bee’s nest high up in a tree.
Dr Kathelijne Koops observes wild chimpanzee populations in the mountain forests of Guinea, West Africa. She has gathered preliminary evidence that they are using stone tools to crack open melon sized fruits known as treculia. Weighing up to 8.5 kg, these fruits are hard and too big for chimpanzees to bite into directly. To solve this problem the chimpanzees use stone anvils and wooden cleavers. The Bossou chimpanzee community in Guinea go one step further. Not only do they crack nuts using a movable hammer and anvil, they even use stabilising wedges to make the anvil more efficient.
These observations are important not just for the natural history books. By looking at how tools are made by these species so closely related to us and with whom we share a common ancestor (about 4 to 6 million years ago), researchers can make predictions about early stone tool use in humans.
By learning to recognising the archaeology left behind from these behaviours we are also guarding against a time when there might no longer be chimpanzees to observe in the wild. Deforestation and the bush meat trade mean that we might soon be looking for remnants of chimpanzee behaviour as archaeologist today scour deserts for early human traces.
Images courtesy of Kathelijne Koops
Koops, K., McGrew, W., & Matsuzawa, T. (2009). Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) use cleavers and anvils to fracture Treculia africana fruits? Preliminary data on a new form of percussive technology Primates, 51 (2), 175-178 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-009-0178-6
McGrew, W., Ham, R., White, L., Tutin, C., & Fernandez, M. (1997). Why Don’t Chimpanzees in Gabon Crack Nuts? International Journal of Primatology, 18 (3), 353-374 DOI: 10.1023/A:1026382316131
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