Continuing Investigations into the Stone Tool-making and Tool-using Capabilities of a Bonobo (Pan paniscus)

Schick, Kathy; Toth, Nicholas; Garufi, Gary T.; Savage‐Rumbaugh, E. Sue; Rumbaugh, Duane M.; Sevcik, Rose A.

doi:10.1006/jasc.1998.0350

Cited by 187 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Consequently, the properties of the flake to be detached cannot be finely controlled; this solution is therefore fundamentally no more difficult than the solution of the nut-cracking task. When Kanzi had to face a situation where the goal was to cut through a cord to open a box containing a desirable food [54,55], he succeeded in discovering a way to produce a chip with a sharp edge. However, while Kanzi was encouraged to produce flakes with a sharp edge through direct percussion using a hard stone hammer to strike the core, he developed his own technique to get a sharp-edged piece of stone that would perfectly fit his goal by throwing the core against a hard surface.…”

Section: ])mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As discussed above, it is worth keeping in mind that chimpanzees (or bonobos such as Kanzi) somehow fall short in being able to visualize the properties of the core so as to exploit them to produce flakes [54,55]. A functional imaging study of brain regions activated in human subjects by physical reasoning in nut-cracking versus stoneflaking tasks would elucidate this problem, but to our knowledge, no such study has yet been conducted.…”

Section: Brain Evolution In Humans and Chimpanzees: Issues Relevant Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking actions: experimental comparison and implications for the evolution of the human brain

Bril¹,

Smaers

Steele

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Various authors have suggested behavioural similarities between tool use in early hominins and chimpanzee nut cracking, where nut cracking might be interpreted as a precursor of more complex stone flaking. In this paper, we bring together and review two separate strands of research on chimpanzee and human tool use and cognitive abilities. Firstly, and in the greatest detail, we review our recent experimental work on behavioural organization and skill acquisition in nut-cracking and stoneknapping tasks, highlighting similarities and differences between the two tasks that may be informative for the interpretation of stone tools in the early archaeological record. Secondly, and more briefly, we outline a model of the comparative neuropsychology of primate tool use and discuss recent descriptive anatomical and statistical analyses of anthropoid primate brain evolution, focusing on corticocerebellar systems. By juxtaposing these two strands of research, we are able to identify unsolved problems that can usefully be addressed by future research in each of these two research areas.

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Section: ])mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Brain Evolution In Humans and Chimpanzees: Issues Relevant Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking actions: experimental comparison and implications for the evolution of the human brain

Bril¹,

Smaers

Steele

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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show abstract

“…The same is true for bonobo chimpanzee (P. paniscus) populations that also consume meat (Hohmann and Fruth, 2008). This lack of tool-assisted butchery cannot easily be attributed to a physical inability to produce or utilise stone flakes suitable for cutting (Wynn and McGrew, 1989;Toth et al, 1993;Schick et al, 1999;Mercader et al, 2002;Toth and Schick, 2009), but rather, it seems that there is a lack of incentive for this behavioural repertoire to naturally occur. Indeed, chimpanzee meat eating is characterised by the consumption of small-bodied vertebrates that can readily be dismembered through the bare force of hands and teeth (Boesch, 1994;McGrew, 1992;Stanford, 1996;Newton-Fisher, 2014;Marzke et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating interrelationships between Lower Palaeolithic stone tool effectiveness and tool user biometric variation: implications for technological and evolutionary changes

Key

Lycett

2016

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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with cutting efficiency using both flakes and handaxes over extended periods of use and in multiple types of cutting task. Results indicate that (1) both handaxe and flake cutting efficiency is significantly related with biometric variation of individual tool-users, (2) relationships between biometric parameters and efficiency are consistent across extended durations but vary dependent upon task-type conditions, (3) manipulative strength is the most significant biometric trait in terms of predicting flake efficiency, while (4) hand size is the strongest predictor of handaxe cutting efficiency. These results demonstrate the long-term impact that stone tool use likely had on the evolution of hominin biometric variation during the Lower Palaeolithic, while also highlighting the variable influence of different tool use contexts.Most notably, results indicate that the onset of the Acheulean may have been dependent, a priori, upon hand dimensions that are close to the modern human range, and that prior to the appearance of this anatomy, handaxe use would have been an impractical (i.e. inefficient) tool use behaviour compared to the use of flakes.

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“…Furthermore, other primates, with markedly different hand morphology (e.g. hand proportions, thumb mobility) compared with that of humans, are also capable of using several different precision grips, including tip-to-tip or tip-to-side of the finger precision grips (rather than pad-to-pad as in humans), as well as in-hand movements [20], especially during feeding, tool-use [21 -34] or experimental tool-making activities [35,36]. Unlike humans, the hands of other primates & 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating thumb–index finger precision grip and manipulation potential in extant and fossil primates

Feix

Kivell

Pouydebat

et al. 2015

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Primates, and particularly humans, are characterized by superior manual dexterity compared with other mammals. However, drawing the biomechanical link between hand morphology/behaviour and functional capabilities in non-human primates and fossil taxa has been challenging. We present a kinematic model of thumb-index precision grip and manipulative movement based on bony hand morphology in a broad sample of extant primates and fossil hominins. The model reveals that both joint mobility and digit proportions (scaled to hand size) are critical for determining precision grip and manipulation potential, but that having either a long thumb or great joint mobility alone does not necessarily yield high precision manipulation. The results suggest even the oldest available fossil hominins may have shared comparable precision grip manipulation with modern humans. In particular, the predicted human-like precision manipulation of Australopithecus afarensis, approximately one million years before the first stone tools, supports controversial archaeological evidence of tool-use in this taxon.

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Continuing Investigations into the Stone Tool-making and Tool-using Capabilities of a Bonobo (Pan paniscus)

Cited by 187 publications

References 17 publications

Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking actions: experimental comparison and implications for the evolution of the human brain

Functional mastery of percussive technology in nut-cracking and stone-flaking actions: experimental comparison and implications for the evolution of the human brain

Investigating interrelationships between Lower Palaeolithic stone tool effectiveness and tool user biometric variation: implications for technological and evolutionary changes

Estimating thumb–index finger precision grip and manipulation potential in extant and fossil primates

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