Chimps using stone tools

Read Later Print. Login or Register in order to comment. Related Articles on Ancient-Origins. Two colonies of apes have been discovered suffering from leprosy. It turns out this was a highly-inaccurate assumption.

A new study on chimpanzees Scientists claim that they have identified the ancient hominin species that gave early humans genital herpes two million years ago. Parathropus boisei was a heavyset human-like species with a very I trampled clumsily through the dense undergrowth, attempting in vain to go a full five minutes without getting snarled in the thorns that threatened my every move.

It was my first field mission in Top New Stories. The design of this element is popularly attributed to Palatkwapi-Sedona: City of the Star People. A legend among the Hopis states that there was once a great temple city of wisdom built by the Star People, the Kachinas. Many of the Hopi clans visited this city during their respective migrations Human Origins.

Buried for millennia in the rear of a rock-shelter in the Lapedo Valley 85 miles north of Lisbon, Portugal, archaeologists uncovered the bones of a four-year-old child, comprising the first complete Palaeolithic skeleton ever dug in Iberia.

The human skull that challenges the Out of Africa theory. Ancient Technology. Though there were no chimpanzee remains at the settlement, testing by archaeologists revealed the tool-laden camp was most likely used by the Great Ape. The stones were much bigger than anything a human could use comfortably and bore the residue of nuts that modern chimpanzees like to snack on. Chimpanzees alive in the wild today are often seen using hammer tools to crack nuts, much like what our ancient ancestors did a few million years ago.

The technology is transmitted socially--or taught, rather than instinctive from birth--and can take up to seven years for a young chimp to master, many scientists have found. It suggests that there is a "culture" link between chimps today and their ancient ancestors, one that could go back even further than a few thousand years, he said. According to the team that found them, they were produced using techniques similar to those used by stone-wielding chimps and monkeys.

This means studying primates that use stone tools could tell us about the nature of early human behaviour. However, drawing conclusions won't be easy: early humans are very different from chimpanzees and monkeys. Within about , years of those Lomekwian stone tools, human technology had moved on. First came "Oldowan" tools, including stones that had been deliberately modified to make a sharp edge by "flaking" off small pieces.

A million years later, Acheulean hand axes with carefully-shaped cutting edges begin appearing in the archaeological record. Why did our ancestors learn to make such sophisticated stone tools, and so long ago, while chimps and monkeys never got beyond a Lomekwian-style technology? You might think it would be down to evolutionary advances in the anatomy of our hands, perhaps allowing for finer manipulation of objects.

Humans' larger brains, and our resulting greater smarts, may be what allowed us to make ever better tools. But it's difficult to say exactly why our ancestors' brains began to swell. One idea, suggested by primatologist Richard Wrangham, also at Harvard, is that our growing brains were fuelled by the development of cooking.

It's not clear when humans first invented cooking. It may have been long after our brains began swelling, which would mean Wrangham's idea is probably wrong.

But if he is correct, it suggests that a study by Rosati and her Harvard colleague Felix Warneken is very significant. Chimps might not have learned to control fire, but Rosati and Warneken found that they have enough smarts to appreciate the benefits of cooking. In a series of experiments, Rosati and Warneken introduced chimps to an "oven": a container into which the apes could place food, which would later be returned to them in a cooked state. The chimps were far more likely to put raw potato chips into this "oven" than into a second container that returned the food still raw.

What's more, when the chimps were given wood chips as well as raw potato chips, they generally didn't bother placing the wood into the "oven". That suggests they didn't see it simply as a cooked food dispenser, but understood that it would only cook edible things.

The chimps were even prepared to carry raw food from a remote location to the "oven" to have it cooked. This reflects the way our ancestors must have begun transporting food to the fireside millions of years ago. Of course, until chimps do learn to control fire — if they ever make that leap — they won't be able to put their appreciation of cooked food to use. But Rosati and Warneken's work suggests that the relevant brain pathways, which perhaps allowed our ancestors to develop bigger brains and more advanced stone tools, are present in chimpanzees too.

It's possible that chimpanzees — and macaques and capuchins — haven't yet reached the limits of their technological capabilities, says Haslam. In other words, chimps and monkeys might have the capacity to make much more sophisticated stone tools, but they may never get the chance to achieve that potential: all because of another group of primates that became master stone tool manufacturers. We use cookies to improve your experience of our website.

More info. Chimpanzees and monkeys have entered the stone age 31 January News. Chimpanzees and monkeys have entered the Stone Age.