The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology

by W. C. McGrew

• ISBN13: 9780521535434
• ISBN10: 0521535433
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Short of inventing a time machine, we will never see our extinct forebears in action and be able to determine directly how human behaviour and culture has developed. However, we can learn from our closest living relatives, the African great apes. The Cultured Chimpanzee explores the astonishing variation in chimpanzee behaviour across their range, which cannot be explained by individual learning, genetic or environmental influences. It promotes the view that this rich diversity in social life and material culture reflects social learning of traditions, and more closely resembles cultural variety in humans than the simpler behaviour of other animal species. This stimulating book shows that the field of cultural primatology may therefore help us to reconstruct the cultural evolution of Homo sapiens from earlier forms, and that it is essential for anthropologists, archaeologists and zoologists to work together to develop a stronger understanding of human and primate cultural evolution.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
1 Introduction	1	(14)
Levels of study	4	(3)
Human uniqueness	7	(5)
Palaeoculture	12	(3)
2 Definition	15	(16)
Checklists	17	(2)
Beyond behaviour	19	(2)
Essentials	21	(3)
The way we do things	24	(7)
3 Disciplines	31	(19)
Anthropology	31	(4)
Archaeology	35	(4)
Psychology	39	(2)
Imitation	41	(2)
Teaching	43	(3)
Zoology	46	(4)
4 Creatures other than primates	50	(13)
Fish	54	(1)
Birds	55	(2)
Mammals	57	(1)
Cetaceans	58	(2)
Discussion	60	(3)
5 Primates	63	(23)
Capuchin monkeys	64	(3)
Macaque monkeys	67	(4)
Great apes	71	(6)
Discussion	77	(9)
6 Chimpanzee ethnography	86	(17)
Provisioning	95	(3)
Tradition	98	(1)
Doing ape ethnography	99	(4)
7 Chimpanzee material culture	103	(28)
Shelter	107	(4)
Subsistence: faunivory	111	(6)
Subsistence: herbivory	117	(3)
Social material culture	120	(3)
Self-maintenance	123	(2)
Significance of material culture	125	(6)
8 Chimpanzee society	131	(31)
Vocal communication	132	(1)
Grooming	133	(2)
Social scratch	135	(2)
Grooming hand-clasp	137	(6)
Cross-species social traditions	143	(5)
Cultural life	148	(14)
9 Lessons from cultural primatology	162	(28)
10 Does cultural primatology have a future?	190	(7)
Things to do	190	(4)
Cultural survival	194	(3)
References	197	(27)
Author index	224	(7)
Subject index	231