Monkeys Making Ancient Stone Tools, Humans Not So Special After All

Scientists recently found a remarkable discovery in a Brazilian forest. A stone tool was found in the forest which was always considered as handiwork made by early humans, but the discovery suggests, this is unlikely.

A group of capuchin monkeys was seen making stone flakes, an early tool used by ancient humans. It is unclear how the monkeys knew how to make one. Nonetheless, this might prompt researchers to be more cautious when they come across the ancient site where similar tools were found.

Stone flakes were used as knives by ancient humans. To make a flake you need to smash two rocks together. A special rock can easily break in a certain way, then you have to hit the two rocks until it breaks into flakes. The flake is shaped like a scallop shell, hold it together or place it in a stick then you’ve got a knife.

This ancient tool making method dates back 3.3 million years ago and has always been connected to ancient humans. They were also uses by some early ancestors such as Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus.

A group of anthropologists filmed a Brazilian capuchin doing this ancient tool making method easily.

Tomos Proffitt, Paleoanthopologist from Oxford University saw them do it and was expecting to see “Capuchins do nut-cracking,” he added, “they crack open palm nuts all the time. So we were looking for this.” It’s something chimpanzees do, as well.

But instead, the capuchins were smashing one rock on top of another, he added “we saw this, doing this stone-on-stone percussion, and that was quite exciting looking at the material they produced. … It was sort of a jaw-dropping moment.”

“Jaw-dropping because they were chipping off flakes. No one has ever seen a monkey doing that. Nuts, sure, but stone tools?”

“We hypothesize that it’s something to do with getting minerals from the quartz because they lick the dust, they ingest it,” Proffitt says.

Another possibility suggests they’re trying to get the lichen that grows on many rocks in the forest. These organisms were found to be nutritious.

Whatever it was, the capuchins were ignoring the flakes. Hence, we can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that monkeys are not as smart as our early ancestors.

Proffitt says the monkey flakes should not confuse researchers. The one made by humans are “more complex than what we see with the capuchins. Nonetheless, they share the same basic characteristics”. There are usually clues found along ancient tools, like cut-marks on nearby bones, unlike the monkey flakes.

This discovery tells us that non-human primates do use tools, occasionally.

The method used by capuchins are more primitive than what early humans most likely used to make flakes. What is interesting is it shows a higher level of thinking for a monkey, said Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, a biologist and expert on stone tools at Chatham University.

“We are constantly erecting false barriers between our mental and manipulative abilities and those of other animals,” she says. “But the truth is far more blurry.”

John Shea, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University says it’s important to remember that humans are more “obligated” to use tools; it was an essential part of being a human.

Most non-human primates don’t use tools. However, those who do don’t improve their usefulness over time, as human ancestors did.

But watching the films the team captured tells us capuchins smash the rocks earnestly, whatever the reason for it.

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