Abstract
All investigated cases of habitual tool use in wild chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys include youngsters encountering durable artefacts, most often in a supportive social context. We propose that enduring artefacts associated with tool use, such as previously used tools, partly processed food items and residual material from previous activity, aid non-human primates to learn to use tools, and to develop expertise in their use, thus contributing to traditional technologies in non-humans. Therefore, social contributions to tool use can be considered as situated in the three dimensions of Euclidean space, and in the fourth dimension of time. This notion expands the contribution of social context to learning a skill beyond the immediate presence of a model nearby. We provide examples supporting this hypothesis from wild bearded capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees, and suggest avenues for future research.
Highlights
Tool use among wild animals holds interest for many scientists concerned with the origins and maintenance of skilled behaviours
We propose that enduring artefacts associated with tool use, such as previously used tools, partly processed food items and residual material from previous activity, aid non-human primates to learn to use tools, and to develop expertise in their use, contributing to traditional technologies in non-humans
We provide examples supporting this hypothesis from wild bearded capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees, and suggest avenues for future research
Summary
Tool use among wild animals holds interest for many scientists concerned with the origins and maintenance of skilled behaviours. The role played by physical components (i.e. artefacts) in the maintenance of technical traditions, tool use, in non-human animals has been overlooked, for wild populations To remedy this oversight, we propose that enduring artefacts associated with technical activities scaffold individuals’ learning these skills in non-human species, and promote the maintenance of technical traditions, much as they do in humans (see [19]). Helton [41] shows that developing expertise (defined as proficient performance according to pre-established criteria) takes about 10% of the lifespan across a wide range of species (for example, termite fishing by chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, living in Gombe, Tanzania) Technical skills such as tool use, which are at the boundaries of a species’ behavioural capabilities, are expected to require a great deal of practice before the skill ‘pays off’ in delivery of benefits from performance. Our data are drawn from two species of non-human primates that habitually use tools in natural settings: bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) and chimpanzees
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