"It's possible this is because we moved from the forests, where if a predator comes along, you can just climb a tree. "That's what's very special about human society - the males are involved in caring for offspring," he added. ![]() "Gorilla males protect the females and offspring, but that's pretty much it," de Waal said. In the case of either chimpanzees or bonobos, humans are distinct in that fathers are often involved in child care. "Other scientists have speculated that bonobos may be the more ancestral type," he said. Instead, de Waal suggests looking at our other close relative, the bonobos, the chimpanzee-like great apes once dubbed "pygmy chimpanzees" that are more playful, often resolving conflicts with sex instead of violence. It's only with the special recent human conditions of settlement and agriculture that gave us the incentive to worry about wealth, leading us to become warriors that way." However, de Waal noted that based what the canines of Ardipithecus suggest, "chimpanzees may be specialized in that regard. Harvard biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham has suggested this pattern of violence may have been part of humanity's legacy as well for millions of years. "They don't like cooperating with strangers, that's for sure," de Waal said. They don't really symbolize like we do, and language is a big difference that influences everything else that you do - how you communicate, basic social interactions, all these become far more complex."Īs gentle as our closest living relatives can be, chimps also can be quite violent in the wild, raping, killing and warring against their rivals. ![]() "They can learn a few symbols in labs, but it's not impressive in my opinion compared to what even a young child can do. "The big difference I see going for us is language," de Waal said. They also display what many scientists dub culture, with groups of chimpanzees socially passing on dozens of behaviors such as tool kits from generation to generation that are distinct from ones seen in other groups. ![]() "Emotionally and socially, the psychology of chimps is very similar to humans," said primatologist Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta.įor instance, he noted, chimps have shown they can help unrelated chimps and human strangers at personal cost without apparent expectation of personal gain, a level of selfless behavior often claimed as unique to humans. Nevertheless, humans keep much in common with chimpanzees. This may suggest that chimpanzees behaved significantly differently from our last common ancestor. In addition, Ardipithecus seemed to have possessed canines that are reduced in size, while male chimps have large tusk-like canines used as weapons for threatening and sometimes attacking other males. The fossil Ardipithecus ramidus, dating 4.4 million years old, which may very well be ancestral to both human and chimpanzee lineages, walked neither like us or chimps, possessing instead an intermediate form of walking. New evidence suggests, however, that our last common ancestor may not have looked as chimp-like as before thought.
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