Pan the Tool-Maker: Investigations into the Stone Tool-Making and Tool-Using Capabilities of a Bonobo ( Pan paniscus)

Abstract

Beginning in May 1990, a long-term collaborative investigation between palaeolithic archaeologists and cognitive psychologists has focused upon the stone tool-making and tool-using abilities of a captive bonobo ( Pan paniscus). To date, this bonobo (named Kanzi) has acquired the basic skills required to produce usable flakes and fragments by hard-hammer percussion (as well as by his own innovation of throwing), although his skills in flaking stone are not yet as well developed as those exhibited by the earliest known tool-making hominids of the Oldowan industry. This research strategy allows direct comparisons and contrasts to be made between the products of modern human stone tool-makers, prehistoric proto-human tool-makers and non-human primates that have not evolved a flaked stone technology in the wild. This enables us to investigate what possible cognitive and biomechanical conditions of pre-adaptation for lithic technology may be present in extant apes. The bonobo's stone tool-making abilities are compared to those evident among early hominids in order to understand the complexities of this derived behaviour pattern in the earliest stone tool-makers. The possible evolutionary implications of this study are discussed.