Indirect data from Ugalla, Tanzania, were the first to indicate that wild chimpanzees use tools to excavate edible USOs. There is both direct and indirect evidence that wild chimpanzees at Assirik, Senegal, also consume USOs, although no evidence that they extract these resources with tools has been reported. Wild chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) at Tongo, Democratic Republic of Congo and at Bossou, Republic of Guinea, have been observed to manually extract and consume USOs without the use of tools. ![]() Some monkeys, including baboons ( Papio spp.), geladas ( Theropithecus gelada), Japanese monkeys ( Macaca fuscata) and black capuchins ( Sapajus nigritus) excavate shallow USOs by hand (usually <10 cm deep for baboons and geladas and up to 16 cm deep for Japanese monkeys ). ![]() However, despite this evidence, the answers to the questions of how USO extractive foraging developed in early hominins and how USOs could have played an adaptive role in hominin evolution remain elusive. In addition, ethnographic data from contemporary human hunter-gatherers ( Homo sapiens) living in dry habitats demonstrate that USOs are staple foods in the diet of many of these populations. Further, ecological studies on the abundance as well as on mechanical properties of USOs that grow in environments similar to those reconstructed for some hominin species, show that USOs were potentially an important food supply for hominins in such environments. Data on hominin craniodental anatomy, dental microwear, enamel chemistry, and archaeology are consistent with this hypothesis, indicating that USOs were likely to have been important in the diet of at least some species in the genera Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo. It has been hypothesized that plant underground storage organs (USOs) were key dietary resources for African Pliocene and Pleistocene hominins who lived in dry and/or open environments. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exist. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.įunding: Funded by La Caixa Foundation Spain (grant number LCF/BQ/EU15/10350002 awarded to Alba Motes-Rodrigo), University of Oslo, Department of Biosciences, Norway. Received: AugAccepted: ApPublished: May 15, 2019Ĭopyright: © 2019 Motes-Rodrigo et al. Petraglia, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, GERMANY ![]() (2019) Chimpanzee extractive foraging with excavating tools: Experimental modeling of the origins of human technology. Our new data provide a direction for the study of variables relevant to modeling USO extractive foraging by early hominins.Ĭitation: Motes-Rodrigo A, Majlesi P, Pickering TR, Laska M, Axelsen H, Minchin TC, et al. They reused some tools throughout the study. They also obtained their own tools mainly from naturally occurring vegetation and transported them to the excavation site. Chimpanzees were selective in their choice of tools that we provided, preferring longer tools for excavation. However, they still excavated manually more often than they did with tools. They exhibited six different tool use behaviors in the context of excavation: probe, perforate, dig, pound, enlarge and shovel. The chimpanzees used tools spontaneously in order to excavate the underground foods. No guidance or demonstration was given to the chimpanzees at any time. We presented the chimpanzees with the opportunity to use tools in order to excavate artificially-placed underground foods in their naturally forested outdoor enclosure. To fill this gap in our knowledge of hominoid USO extractive foraging, we conducted tool-mediated excavation experiments with captive chimpanzees naïve to this behavior. However, those chimpanzees remain largely unhabituated and we lack direct observations of this behavior in the wild. Recent data indicate that savanna chimpanzees also use tools to excavate edible USOs. ![]() It is hypothesized that tool-assisted excavation of plant underground storage organs (USOs) played an adaptive role in hominin evolution and was also once considered a uniquely human behavior.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |