Anth , 14 Jan 2002

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Trying to lj-cut, will fix later

Primates questions:

• Predatory chimps: Did they eat monkeys before the researchers arrived? Assumption is yes, and this behaviour has been observed in other priamtes elsewhere.


• How is troop rank achieved: Birth, combat and aggression, alliances


• Dominant members will be sleek (more grooming), larger(more food), and have many battle scars


• Prosimian examples: . . . . . lemurs
  
• Migration?: Baboons develop wanderlust as part of maturation (It is believed that this behaviour is instinctive and prevents inbreeding). They are not driven off


• exception: Young male gorillas will be chased out as competetion.


• How do they find new troops?: Sight, smell.. Often see/contact other troops


• Did early humans eat less meat due to limited availability or ?


• Fossil teeth (dentition (sp?)) are the evidence of diet, and some feces


• It is assumed that until tools, early hominids would have been too small to obtain meat.


• Sexual dimorphism: significant size difference in males and females


• This seems to explain why males of those species do more of the hunting.

film: cultural development in apes, chimps, oraungatans (sp)

• chimps: make different tools for different insects: ants, termites


• ivory coast chimps: wooden 'hammer' and 'anvil' and rocks to crack nuts


• learned: taught by mother, make take up to 6 y to perfect


• this is the beginning of culture


• tanganyikan chimps: lick rocks for salt and other minerals


• chimps: eat a non-nutritive herb for dyspepsia


• borneo O: learned to wash clothes from humans


• June: Chicago Zoo : paints with brushes, which she fixes


• June: determines when a painting is done and won't add to it.
  

June:

• Yerkes: painting chimps will choose art over food


• never draw on anything but paper or canvas


• given materials and allowed to watch others and experiment


• one of June's early paintings was entered in a Chicago art show and took 3rd


• paints everyday


• large canvases occasionally


• prints and originals in Lincoln Park Zoo shop

• various anecdotes about human-primate kinship


• Yerkes researcher kept warm by female gorilla overnight


• human child carried to safety in priamte pit at a zoo


• talk about Willie B. and his habitat


• reminder of gorilla strength

Communications, Language Training, and Apes

• image: collage of similar facial expressions between chimps and George W. Bush


• Can non-human primates understand syntax and grammar?
  
  
  
  • early on, some facility was discovered, but doubts remained
    
  • responses were appropriate, but conditioning was suspected
    
  • Chimps were being taught symbols out of context
    
  • Changed teaching methods: full commands, full sentences
    
  • Primates were understanding syntax (order) concepts
    
  • Subjects assembled their own, unparseable sentences
    
  • novel formulations, new meanings
    
  • "throw ball in water" -> did
    
  • Koko: water-bird -> picture of duck
    
  • chimp: green bananna -> cucumber
    
  • inter-subject communication
    
  • expressed desires, request objects from another place
    
  • self-recognition in mirrors, monitors
    
  • Indicated planned actions, spoke of future
    
  
  

Kanzi (film clip)

• here in Atlanta, at Yerkes


• Sue Rumbaugh (sp?), .. .. , Emory and GA State


• bonobo chimps can't vocalize human sounds


• Mata, Kanzi's mother never quite picked this up, but Kanzi seems to have


• keyboard/table: match sounds to symbols


• follows commands without facial cues (welding mask)


• "take the vacuum cleaner outdoors"


• helper monkeys for paraplegics and quadraplegics


• do they show emotions? (film clip next time)

Wed: loose ends on priamates, start in on bipedialism
Quiz for today as a ho, go over answers on Wed