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A COMPARISON OF HUMAN & CHIMPANZEE BEHAVIOR

by Robert F. Smith 2013 Introduction It is a long climb from the earliest apes to modern man, with a good many living and dead-end branches in the hominoid family tree. Early and middle miocene Hominoidea like Proconsul and Kenyapithecus Wickeri suggest the beginning of a long sequence of variegated sets of hominoids, later including the Hominidae and Homo sapiens sapiens (Past Worlds 1995:52-66). The many millions of years during which these hominoids and hominids were on stage can be characterized primarily by stasis, punctuated occasionally by short bursts of developmental change (Shreeve 1995:10-11,14-15,21,173,261-286), even if it is not always clear what happened or how. What is important is the information supplied by archaeology and compared with modern human and ape behavior. This is especially important when examining the behavior of man's nearest living relatives, Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus (chimpanzee and bonobo, resp.; Kano 1992:10). Indeed, some recent authors assert that comparing and understanding these behaviors can aid in solving some modern human societal problems (Wrangham & Peterson 1996; Whipple 1997; Isaac 1978), and may also help explain early hominid behavior and development (Wynn & McGrew 1989; Boesch-Achermann & Boesch 1994; Stanford 1995; Stanford 1996; Stanford, forthcoming books).

Similarities "Chimpanzees," observes Goodall, "have a long childhood," and "have enduring, longlasting [extended-] family bonds" (1988:2-3,56). The life-span of chimpanzees is shorter than modern man, but probably close to that of "early man" (Goodall 1988:2). Researchers at Emory Universitys Yerkes National Primate Research Center have found through careful experimentation, that chimps are very cooperative with each other, tend to show compassion toward other chimps (even when it is not to their advantage), and that they exhibit an innate

2 sense of fairness, i.e., they have a strong tendency to prosocial behavior (Horner 2011; Proctor 2013a; Proctor 2013b). Chimps apparently practice self-medication from available plants (Peterson & Goodall 1993:37-41; Wrangham & Peterson 1996:10). Chimps are also very clever, inventive tool users, although the modes of tool-use differ according to locality. They use wood or stone anvils & hammers to crack open nuts (Peterson & Goodall 1993:41,44-45,47; Wynn & McGrew 1989:385-387), use sticks to remove nutmeats, or honey from a hive, or ants, or termites, etc., after careful selection and preparation of the appropriate stick (Peterson & Goodall 1993:33-36; Wynn & McGrew 1989:389) male & female Fongoli chimps even creating sharpened, heavy spears around a meter long in order to kill and eat bush-babies and bushbucks (Pruetz 2007; Roach 2008). They throw rocks and other items at enemies (Wynn & McGrew 1989:385). They can create leafy sponges to obtain water (Goodall 1988b:98-99). They also use leaves to wipe after defecating, as well as to wipe their noses, and for cleaning up other bodily fluids. Fongoli chimps may adopt a pet a kitten in one case. Chimps spit to show extreme disgust (Roach 2008), and their instinctive victory displays and hangdog looks after defeats have been shown to be identical to those among humans (Tracy 2008; Gellene 2008:A1,13). Also, very much like humans, chimps grieve over dead relatives (Balter 2010). Goodall notes the similarities in games played (tickling, for example), and finds a number of other "striking" parallels in the "postural and gestural communication signals" of chimps and humans, including "kissing, embracing, touching and patting and holding hands," all of which can differ based on the actual relationship of the individual chimps (1988b:246-248; Goodall 1988:3,7; Peterson & Goodall 1993:46,48; cf. Wrangham & Peterson 1996:10). Fongoli chimps have been seen lying on their backs doing the airplane with their offspring. Yawns are contagious among them (Roach 2008). Verbal similarities have been thought to be limited to chimps laughing, crying, and screaming (Goodall 1988:50,60; Peterson & Goodall 1993:4546,48), and they shake hands, but chimps dont like to be laughed at (Roach 2008) we will have more to say on this in general below. Goodall also notes that "every chimpanzee has a very distinct and individual personality, rivaled . . . only by individual differentiation between

3 humans" (1988:42). Finally, one very gifted young chimp (Figan) showed himself capable of carefully planned, deliberately evasive behavior in order to obtain food (Goodall 1988b:96-97). Except among the Fongoli, chimp hunting for monkeys, which is a male activity apparently accentuated by a seasonal need for additional protein and often prompted by a female in estrus, is disorganized and chaotic in Gombe, but well-organized among the Tai chimps however, the difference may be strategic and locally adaptive in Gombe (Peterson & Goodall 1993:36-37; Stanford 1996:106). Except among the Fongoli, male chimps hunt in groups primarily for the red colobus monkey, but also hunt for young baboons, bushbuck, pig, and the like, offering meat to females in exchange for sex, or to friends as a reward for their support (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:1011). "Our ancestors, like ourselves, could probably break up the body of a small animal as chimpanzees do, with nothing but their hands and teeth" (Isaac 1978:102). Chimp warfare has become a now classic element of comparison with humans. For, not only do male chimps engage in territorial patrolling and defense, but they also deliberately enter enemy territory, ambush, and kill any lone male or older female chimp which they might find kidnapping younger females (Goodall 1988:10-13; Wrangham & Peterson 1996:12-26). Wrangham & Peterson ask why this pattern of rape, killing, and even torture or mutilation should be present in us and in our nearest primate relative? Does aggression "maximize [individual] genetic success"? Is this an example of the "selfish-gene theory of natural selection" (="inclusive fitness theory")? Is this why humans and one type of chimp are so uniquely violent? (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:22-23). Even if it is no longer adaptive, could mere inertia be the reason why chimps and humans still find a need to remove the competition? (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:25-26). Such questions are now complicated, if not mooted, by the discovery of killing by Fongoli females (Roach 2008; Pruetz 2007). However, "lethal intergroup aggression" (warfare) is not the pattern of the bonobo chimp, and perhaps they have a better social system for regulating violence (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:26-27). For one thing, female ovulation is concealed among the bonobo, females are always available, and males don't have to fight over sex (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:212-213).

4 The incest taboo has some currency, e.g., chimp females do not like to mate with maternal brothers (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:7), while bonobo mothers will not mate with mature sons (Kano 1992:145,167-168,205). Female homosexuality (and some sort of male homosexuality) is clearly practiced by bonobos sex is a social activity among them in general anyhow (Wrangham & Peterson 1996:209-210,213; Kano 1992:139,178,187-188,190-196,206). Ventro-ventral copulation is favored by bonobos and humans, but not by other chimpanzees (Kano 1992:142,156). Finally, although Goodall claimed that chimps do not have the verbal language abilities of humans (Goodall 1988b:248-250), it seems clear from recent reports of research by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Bill Fields in the Language Research Center at Georgia State Univ., Atlanta, Georgia, and at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, that bonobos have a very sophisticated linguistic aptitude (Hamilton 2006; Vigran 2006; cf. Gould 1994) which raises serious questions about the assumptions about the nature of language previously made by such scholars as Noam Chomsky, i.e., that it requires an innate understanding of grammar (deep structure) and that this is unique to humans. As Jon Hamilton puts it, the bonobo Kanzi did key things humans do with language: He was talking about places and objects that werent in sight. He was referring to the past and the future. And he was understanding new sentences made up of familiar words. (Hamilton 2006) Contrasts Unlike humans and bonobos, sexual activity is restricted among other chimps mainly to periods of estrus of any given female, and homosexuality virtually unheard of (Goodall 1988b:186-188). According to Goodall, rape is rare, although the system of submission among chimps makes the question academic (1988b:188-191), and Wrangham and Peterson assert the opposite, that rape does indeed occur (1996:7; cf. Kano 1992:155 citing Goodall). The male chimp is excluded "from familial responsibilities," and has no way of knowing who his offspring might be (Goodall 1988b:185; Goodall 1988:57), even though he may play with the young in a fatherly way.

5 Chimps do not usually seek shelter from the rain (Goodall 1988b:52-57,photo 6 following page 170). On the dark side, there is the "bizarre series of infant killings and cannibalism which lasted for four years" at Gombe (Goodall 1988:52) extreme even by normal human standards.

Humans Human hunter-gatherers tend to have a home-base, and when they do move from place to place, they carry tools, food, and other supplies with them. They communicate with a sophisticated verbal language, making possible the exchange of important information about almost any aspect of social relations or technology. Not only is food-gathering and hunting "a corporate responsibility," but the food is brought back home and systematically shared. The sophisticated tools used by humans (and earlier hominids) makes possible the acquisition of relatively large prey (Isaac 1978:91-92,100,104,106).

Hominin-Chimp Interbreeding? In discussing the shifting boundaries between chimpanzee and human, Roach states that both have gene sequences . . . around 95 to 98 percent the same (This is less meaningful than it sounds. Humans share more than 80 percent of their gene sequence with mice, and maybe 40 percent with lettuce.) A recent exploration of the human and chimpanzee genomes, undertaken by David Reich and colleagues at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggests that chimpanzees and early hominins may have interbred after the two lines initially split. [Roach 2008:4] Conclusion Stanford considers it likely that, given "the evolutionary importance of cooperative hunting," the presence of estrus female chimps "in a hunt may illustrate the evolutionary roots of mutual attempts to control and manipulation by each sex of the other." Perhaps as shown by the continuously sexually available females among humans and bonobos, "the evolution of concealed ovulation" creates "pressure for the male to provide continuous mate guarding," even

6 though an "incipient pair bonding" probably does exist among Gombe chimps in the form of consortships (Stanford 1996:106; cf. Isaac 1978:106,108). Hunting success was directly related to the number of male hunters involved. Moreover, since fossils from 4.4 mya in Ethiopia indicate that very early hominids were then living in a woodland/ savanna habitat with colobine monkeys and other small game present, it is likely that they "were primarily frugivorous," and "hunted socially for small and medium-sized mammals, the meat of which was shared" (Stanford 1996:106-107, citing White, WoldeGabriel, and Wrangham). Females, "encumbered with children," would remain closer to home the fundamental division of labor (Isaac 1978:100). By about 2.5 mya, "evidence for scavenging" among hominids "appears incontrovertible," and meat thus obtained and via "hunting could have been a seasonally significant part of the australo-pithecine diet" naturally this is made all the more significant by the presence of butchery tools (and possibly hunting tools) at this early horizon (Stanford 1996:108). Wynn & McGrew take a frankly minimalist approach to all this, preferring to think of ape-like creatures rather than protohumans at Oldowan circa 2.5 mya (1989:383-395), but it all remains a matter of interpretation of the evidence.

7 BIBLIOGRAPHY Alcock, John. 2001 The Triumph of Sociobiology (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001). Sociobiology provides the best analysis of the evolution of social behavior, including sexual jealousy, beauty, gender differences, parent-offspring relations, and rape. Aureli, Filippo, and Frans B. M. de Waal, eds. 2000 Natural Conflict Resolution (Berkeley: UC Press, 2000). Balter, Michael. 2010 Chimps Grieve Over Dead Relatives, ScienceNow, April 26, 2010, online at http://news.sciencemag.org/ sciencenow/2010/04/chimps-grieve-over-dead-relative.html . Provides videos, including one of a young chimp moving a mummified baby chimp around, right next to adults who are using large stones to open nuts and feed themselves. Boehm, Christopher. 1999 Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999). Boesch, Christophe, and Hedwige Boesch-Achermann. 2000 The Chimpanzees of the Ta Forest: Behavioural Ecology and Evolution (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000). Fifteen years of observation of Ivory Coast chimps in the jungle of West Africa. Boesch-Achermann, Hedwige, and Christophe Boesch. 1994 "Hominization in the Rainforest: The Chimpanzee's Piece of the Puzzle," Evolutionary Anthropology, 3 (1994), 9-16. Byrne, Richard W. 2007 Animal Cognition: Bring Me My Spear, Current Biology, 17/5 (Mar 6, 2007), R164165, re Fongoli chimp behavior. Spearing of mammalian prey. Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth. 1990 How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1990). Diamond, Jared. 2006 The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (N.Y.: Harper Perennial, 2006). Humans as a kind of chimp. Dugatkin, Lee. 1999 Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees: The Nature of Cooperation in Animals and

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9 Shows, ScienceDaily, Aug 9, 2011, online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808152220.htm . Isaac, Glynn. 1978 "The Food-Sharing Behavior of Protohuman Hominids," Scientific American, 238/4 (April 1978), 90-108. Kano, Takayoshi. 1992 The Last Ape: Pygmy Chimpanzee Behavior and Ecology, trans. E. O. Vineberg (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1992). Klein, Jan, and Naoyuki Takahata. 2002 Where Do We Come From? The Molecular Evidence for Human Descent (N.Y./Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2002). Ladygina-Kohts, N. N. 2002 Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child: A Classic 1935 Comparative Study of Ape Emotions and Intelligence, ed. F. B. M de Waal, trans. B. Vekker, Series in Affective Science (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), from the Darwin Museum Series (Moscow, 1935). Laland, Kevin, and Gillian Brown. 2002 Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002). Marks, Jonathan. 2002 What It Means To Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes (Berkeley: UC Press, 2002). Modern genetics cannot tell us everything, despite the claims generated within the culture of science, with its genetic reductionism, hubris, and prejudice. Matsuzawa, Tetsuro. 2000 Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior (N.Y./Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2000). McGrew, William C. 1992 Chimpanzee Material Culture (Cambridge, England/New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992). Past Worlds: The Times Atlas of Archaeology, rev. ed. (Times Books, 1989; N.Y./Avenel, N.J.: Crescent Books/Random House, 1995). Pereira, Michael E., and Lynn A. Fairbanks, eds. 1993 Juvenile Primates: Life History, Development and Behavior (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993/2002). From prosimians to humans.

10 Peterson, Dale, and Jane Goodall. 1993 Visions of Caliban: On Chimpanzees and People (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993). Peterson, Dale. 2004 Eating Apes (Berkeley: UC Press, 2004). The coming extinction of chimps. Plummer, Thomas W. 1997 "Invitation to Our Evolutionary Past," paper presented at the UCLA Extension Program on "Human Origins," January 25, 1997. Povenelli, Daniel J. 2000 Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzees Theory of How the World Works (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000). Proctor, Darby, Rebecca A. Williamson, Frans B. M. de Waal, and Sarah F. Brosnan. 2013a Chimpanzees Play the Ultimatum Game, PNAS, 110/6 (Jan 14, 2013), 2070-2075; published ahead of print January 14, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1220806110, online at http://www.pnas.org/content/110/6/2070.full.pdf+html?sid=0d755a3c-42c5-4859-a65e-8 ba1d82849b2 . Proctor, Darby. 2013b Fairness in Chimpanzees, WAMC.org, April 4, 2013, online at http://www.wamc.org/post/dr-darby-proctor-emory-university-fairness-chimpanzees .

Pruetz, Jill D., and Paco Bertolani. 2007 Savanna Chimpanzees, Pan Troglodytes Verus, Hunt with Tools, Current Biology, 17/5 (Mar 6, 2007), 412-417. Roach, Mary. 2008 Almost Human, National Geographic, 213/4 (April 2008), 124-145, featured online at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2008-04/chimps-with-spears/roach-text.html . Re Fongoli type of chimp found in the hot savanna-woodlands of eastern Senegal and western Mali featured as Ape Genius on PBS-TVs Nova, Feb 19, 2008. These chimps (including females and juveniles), as closely studied by Jill Pruetz, regularly sharpen the ends of branches with their teeth and use them to stab bush-babies (and sometimes bushbuck fawns). In addition, Fongoli chimp males do not trade meat for sex. This has discomfited adherents of the demonic male theory (Richard Wrangham, Craig Stanford, et al.) since it tends to deny their notion that it is specifically male primates (including human males) who are naturally violent and murderous initially based on Jane Goodalls reports of infanticide and cannibalism at Gombe. Moreover, the ecological intelligence theory suggests that primates (including chimps and humans) have developed larger, more complex brains over time due to their need for cognitive mapping capabilities over a large range habitat.

11 Rose, Lisa, and Fiona Marshall. 1996 "Meat Eating, Hominid Sociality, Home Bases Revisited," Current Anthropology, 37/2 (April 1996), 307-338. Segerstrale, Ullica. 2000 Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000). Covers the nasty debate over good science by naturalists and experimentalists, including unfair attacks on Edward O. Wilson. Shreeve, James. 1995 The Neandertal Enigma: Solving the Mystery of Modern Human Origins (New York: Avon Books, 1995). Smuts, Barbara B. 1999 Sex and Friendship in Baboons (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999). Stanford, Craig B. 1995 "Chimpanzee Hunting Behavior and Human Evolution," American Scientist, 83 (MayJune 1995), 256-261. Stanford, Craig B. 1996 "The Hunting Ecology of Wild Chimpanzees: Implications for the Evolutionary Ecology of Pliocene Hominids," American Anthropologist, 98/1 (March 1996), 96-113. Stanford, Craig B. 1998 Chimpanzee and Red Colobus: The Ecology of Predator and Prey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1998). Stanford, Craig B. 1999 The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999/2008). Stanford, Craig B., and Henry T. Bunn, eds. 2001 Meat-Eating and Human Evolution (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001). On the role of hunting and scavenging in evolution. Before 2.5 mya the significance of meat in the hominid diet is unknown, but following the appearance of tools, meat was certainly a given. Strum, Shirley C., and Linda Marie Fedigan, eds. 2000 Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gender, and Society (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000). Tomasello, Michael. 1999 The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press,

12 1999). Evolutionary theory and cultural psychology: the ontogenetic ratchet theory of the development of symbol-based human primate culture, including language and cognition, i.e., the ontogeny of cultural learning. Tracy, Jessica L, and David Matsumoto. 2008 The Spontaneous Expression of Pride and Shame: Evidence for Biologically Innate Nonverbal Displays, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), online Aug 11, 2008, at http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/08/0802686105. Tuttle, Russell H. 1986 Apes of the World: Their Social Behavior, Communication, Mentality, and Ecology, Noyes Series in Animal Behavior, Ecology, Conservation and Management (Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Publ., 1986). Vigran, Anna. 2006 Living With Nyota the Bonobo, NPR.org, July 8, 2006, online at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5541593&ft=1&f-1007. de Waal, Frans. 1996 Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1996). de Waal, Frans, ed. 2001a Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001). de Waal, Frans. 2001b The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist (Basic Books, 2001). Re the learned rather than instinctive behavior of apes. Whipple, Dan. 1997 "Stone Age Aerobics," Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1997, B2. Wrangham, Richard W., et al., eds. 1994 Chimpanzee Cultures, Chicago Academy of Sciences (Cambridge, Mass/London: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994). Wrangham, Richard W., and Dale Peterson. 1996 Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). Wynn, T., and William C. McGrew. 1989 "An Ape's View of the Oldowan," Man, n.s., 24 (1989), 383-398.

13 Zuk, Marlene. 2002 Sexual Selections: What We Can and Cant Learn about Sex from Animals (Berkeley: UC Press, 2002). Anthropomorphism and gender politics color our understanding of sexual selection. Animals are not role models and do not vindicate our behavior. We need to marvel at the variety in nature and stop trying to see ourselves in it.

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