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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Apes Can Do It Too; Predicting Others’ Behavior

Using an Infrared eye tracking device and the with the help of an actor wearing a ‘King Kong’ suit. A study shows that the human skill of predicting others’ unspoken intentions are not exclusive anymore.

Among all creatures, common belief holds that only humans have the ability to anticipate different behaviors of others, also known as the great evolutionary skill. Having this skill allows humans to get ahead of others.

Another version of this skill is the ability to comprehend that someone holds a mistaken belief. By doing this, it means you totally understand what’s inside their minds. However, not only through observing their anticipated reactions in a specific situation.

Scientists conducted a test to children ages of 4; they showed them a doll named Sally put a block in a box. When Sally left, another doll named Anne showed up and moves the block. The kids were then asked where Sally would search for it. The kids figures out correctly that Sally would check the block from where she left it, knowing that it was not there anymore.

Many years ago, researchers figured out a way to conduct this test to toddlers ages 2. The same “sally” scenario was given to them only this time, using an eye-tracking device to see where the toddlers think Sally is going. Researchers were surprised to discover the toddlers were able to predict that Sally would act on her incorrect belief.

These experimental studies led scientists to conduct another significant experiment. They would use the same Infrared eye tracking technology on Apes.

This experimental study led by evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Krupenye at Duke University and comparative psychologist Fumihiro Kano of Kyoto University lined up 41 chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans.

The scientists showed a string of videos to the apes featuring a man and a guy wearing a King Kong suit.

In the videos, King Kong hides a stone from the man. If the man figured what’s going on, then he will look for the rock from where King Kong left it. If not, then he didn’t.

To make sure Apes really understand what’s going on, the researchers showed another scene in which King Kong hides in one of the haystacks. Sometimes the man sees where King Kong is going, and sometimes not. With the help of the eye-tracking device, the scientist determined the movement of the apes’ eyes. They then made some conclusions on what runs through their minds.

This experimental study confirmed that Apes can really think and understand like humans, and were able to identify right and wrong.

Thanks to these results, the claim that only humans can ascertain the mental states of others “is starting to wobble”. Primatologist Frans de Waal of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, stated this in a commentary included in the study.

Body language, Not Mind Reading

Krupenye and company wrote that this ability possibly developed originally in a hominid forebear we shared with the apes.

De Waal agrees, saying the results highlight “the mental continuity between great apes and humans.”

“Reading others’ minds is beyond anybody’s capacity,” he wrote. “All we can do — and what apes apparently do in similar ways — is read bodies.”

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