Manufacture and Use of Tools in Wild Sumatran Orangutans Implications for Human Evolution

Orangutan tool use and the evolution of technology

“…The exception was tool complexity, because no orangutan population had complex tools. However, flexible and habitual use suggestive of social acquisition have only been reported for seed-extraction and tree-hole tool use, which are both exhibited only by (non-morio) Sumatran orangutans (van Schaik et al, 1996(van Schaik et al, , 2003bvan Schaik & Knott, 2001). With regard to the results from the orangutan-chimpanzee comparisons, we found a significant bias toward extractive-foraging, complex, subsistence and terrestrial tool variants in favor of chimpanzees, whereas the bias was in favor of orangutans for the number of non-extractive and physical-comfort tool variants.…”

“…This is not because tool use requires advanced cognition per se, but rather because of the cognitive gradient that can be recognized when animals use objects. This ranges from the fairly simple manipulation of fixed substrates or borderline tool use to: true tool use in which objects are detached from their substrate (although use may still be stereotypic and inflexible); additional steps of manufacture and modification (Beck, 1980;Boesch & Boesch, 1990;McGrew, 1992;BentleyCondit & Smith, 2010); flexible tool use, in which the tools are adjusted to the task at hand (van Schaik et al, 1996); and finally accumulated tool use (also: cumulative or associated) in which multiple innovations (cf. Reader & Laland, 2002) may be combined for a single purpose (Parker & Gibson, 1977;Beck, 1980;Byrne, 1995;Bentley-Condit & Smith, 2010;Shumaker et al, 2011).…”

“…Although the socioecological model explains the broad distribution of aspects of primate tool use, it cannot explain the rarity of complex tool use in all wild orangutans (van Schaik et al, 1996) relative to chimpanzees (Whiten et al, 2009). We would therefore like to propose to add terrestriality as a factor to the model.…”

“…We therefore reviewed the literature on tool use, innovations and culture in wild orangutans (Russon et al, 2009;van Schaik et al, 2009), and added 182 E. J. M. Meulman and C. P. van Schaik some unpublished observations from Suaq Balimbing, to construct a tool-use inventory for eight wild orangutan populations in Sumatra and Borneo (Figure 9.1). We trust that this provides us with the complete tool repertoire for orangutans at existing study sites (especially for the habitual tool variants), because tool-use behaviors are striking to observers and have been a focus of attention for at least three decades (van Schaik et al, 1996;Fox & Bin'Muhammad, 2002).…”

The Evolution of Primate Cognition

“…The chimpanzee and the orangutan (van Schaik, Fox & Sitompul, 1996) are the only primate species regularly to manufacture and use tools for subsistence in the wild, and many tool types have now been described (McGrew, 1992). In captivity, all great apes commonly use and make tools (McGrew, 1989), and the manufacture of stone tools has been induced in orangutans and bonobos (Toth, Schick, Savage-Rumbaugh, Sevcik & Rumbaugh, 1993;Wright, 1972).…”