This mother chimpanzee is using stones to crack open a nut, as a child watches and learns. The skill-level needed for this operation is difficult (finding the right anvil-shaped stone, using another proper-sized stone to bang, learning how to position the nut, etc), and it will be until the young chimp is about six before she can perform this task on her own. Although we have known about tool use among chimpanzees for a while, only in the last two decades have archaeologists uncovered evidence of this cultural past going back deep in history. In 2007 the discovery of sites along the Cote d’Ivoire revealed that chimpanzees had developed “stone-age” technology 4,300 years ago in a place that humans had not yet settled. Challenging anthropomorphic assumtions of human uniqueness once again, in 2011 scientists in an arid part of east Africa found chimpanzees using tools to dig up roots and tubers, habits that are more frequently associated with hunter-gathering humans.
Source(s): Photo credit for chimp: Etsuko Nogami, in sciencenordic.com December 3, 2011. Articles used include the one from sciencenordic.com, as well as Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. Feb 27, 2007 104 (9): 3043-48.
