Abstract
Reports exist of transmission of culture in nonhuman primates. We examine this in a troop of savanna baboons studied since 1978. During the mid-1980s, half of the males died from tuberculosis; because of circumstances of the outbreak, it was more aggressive males who died, leaving a cohort of atypically unaggressive survivors. A decade later, these behavioral patterns persisted. Males leave their natal troops at adolescence; by the mid-1990s, no males remained who had resided in the troop a decade before. Thus, critically, the troop's unique culture was being adopted by new males joining the troop. We describe (a) features of this culture in the behavior of males, including high rates of grooming and affiliation with females and a “relaxed” dominance hierarchy; (b) physiological measures suggesting less stress among low-ranking males; (c) models explaining transmission of this culture; and (d) data testing these models, centered around treatment of transfer males by resident females.
Highlights
A goal of primatology is to understand the enormous variability in primate social behavior
Investigators examined interspecies differences, e.g., that pair-bonding is more common among arboreal than terrestrial primates (Crook and Gartlan 1966)
As traditionally applied to humans, such ‘‘culture’’ can be defined as behaviors shared by a population, but not necessarily other species members, that are independent of genetics or ecological factors and that persist past their originators (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1966; Cavalli-Sforza 2000; de Waal 2000; de Waal 2001)
Summary
Reports exist of transmission of culture in nonhuman primates. We examine this in a troop of savanna baboons studied since 1978. During the mid-1980s, half of the males died from tuberculosis; because of circumstances of the outbreak, it was more aggressive males who died, leaving a cohort of atypically unaggressive survivors. A decade later, these behavioral patterns persisted. Males leave their natal troops at adolescence; by the mid-1990s, no males remained who had resided in the troop a decade before. We describe (a) features of this culture in the behavior of males, including high rates of grooming and affiliation with females and a ‘‘relaxed’’ dominance hierarchy; (b) physiological measures suggesting less stress among low-ranking males; (c) models explaining transmission of this culture; and (d) data testing these models, centered around treatment of transfer males by resident females
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