The Production and Use of Digging Tools by Monkeys: A Nonhuman Primate Model of a Hominid Subsistence Activity

Abstract

This research examined the production and use of digging tools by tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). We provided groups of subjects with sticks and containers that held peanuts buried in hard-packed earth. Nine of the ten subjects used their fingers to loosen earth and their hands to scoop away soil. Four of these subjects used sticks as digging tools, and three of them produced tools for this purpose. Similarities were noted between the digging behavior of capuchins and that of humans in modern hunter-gatherer societies. We hypothesize that Homo habilis could have produced digging tools analogous to those produced by monkeys in this investigation and that the use of such implements would have provided evolutionary advantages in harsh prehistoric environments.