#biology #orangutans #stonetoolmaking #tooluse
Scientists Investigate Stone Tool Making and Using Abilities in Orangutans
Early stone tools represent one of the most important technological milestones in human evolution. The production and use of sharp stone tools significantly widened the ecological niche of our ancestors, allowing them to exploit new food resources. However, despite their importance, it is still unclear how these early stone technologies emerged and which behaviors served as stepping-stones for the development of systematic stone tool production in our lineage. One approach to answer this question is to collect comparative data on the stone tool making and using abilities of our closest living relatives, the great apes, to reconstruct the potential stone-related behaviors of early hominins. To this end, a team of researchers from the University of Tübingen, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Barcelona and the University of Oslo tested both the individual and the social learning abilities of orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) to make and use stone tools...
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/stone-tool-making-orangutans-10562.html