Monkey Hammers

[Beady]

Haven't seen this mentioned on the forum, yet:

A ​

Dr. Julio Mercader, one of the few archaeologists in the world who studies the material culture of great apes, especially chimpanzees, uncovered stone 'hammers' last year in the Taï rainforest of Africa's Côte D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) that date back 4,300 years.​

Hmm... Can't seem to make the first paragraph visible.

 

[juryjone]

Here you go.

A University of Calgary archaeologist has found the first prehistoric evidence of chimpanzee technology, adding credence to the theory that some of humanity's behavioural hallmarks were actually inherited by both humans and great apes from a common ancestor.

Dr. Julio Mercader, one of the few archaeologists in the world who studies the material culture of great apes, especially chimpanzees, uncovered stone 'hammers' last year in the Taï rainforest of Africa's Côte D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) that date back 4,300 years.

 

[AgingYoung]

Beady,

The article concludes at the beginning with…

• adding credence to the theory that some of humanity's behavioural hallmarks were actually inherited by both humans and great apes from a common ancestor.

Then further in the article made these points...

• "It's not clear whether we hominins invented this kind of stone technology, or whether both humans and the great apes inherited it from a common forebear,"
• Although it's difficult to prove whether the technology was adopted through imitation, another possibility is convergence -- that is, both humans and great apes arrived at the technique independently.

It’s a leap of faith to go from the ideas ‘It’s not clear…’ and ‘Although it’s difficult to prove’ to conclude this find is ‘adding credence’ to the initial supposition. I wouldn’t bet the farm on the conclusion. What do you suppose?

Gene

 

[Cuddles]

This was mentioned in the BBC and New Scientist as well. I thought it was a rather diappointing jump to a conclusion from someone who should know better.

Not everyone agrees. There may have been prehistoric cultures that used heavier hammer stones and ate a wider range of nut species than we realise today, notes Sally McBrearty, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. By piling inference upon inference as Mercader does, she says, "you just get on shakier and shakier ground, because of the uncertainty with each one of the steps".

There is no actual evidence that these were used by chimps. All there is are some stone hammers that are not quite the same size as other proto-human ones and were used to prepare a slightly different diet. Given that we know there is wide variation in style of tools and diet in humans throughout the ages, it is a very big leap to the conclusion that these were not used by humans. An interesting find, but nowhere near as interesting as reports have made out.