scholarly journals Human activity negatively affects stone tool-using Burmese long-tailed macaquesMacaca fascicularis aureain Laem Son National Park, Thailand

Oryx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gumert ◽  
Yuzuru Hamada ◽  
Suchinda Malaivijitnond
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
National Park ◽  
Anthropogenic Impact ◽  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Canis Familiaris ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Domestic Dogs ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Invertebrate Prey ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAnimal traditions can affect survival by improving how individuals use their environment. They are inherited through social learning and are restricted to small subpopulations. As a result, traditions are rare and their preservation needs to be considered in biodiversity conservation. We studied Burmese long-tailed macaquesMacaca fascicularis aurealiving on Piak Nam Yai Island in Laem Son National Park, Thailand, which maintain a rare stone tool-using tradition for processing hard-shelled invertebrate prey along the island's shores. We found the population had 192 individuals in nine groups and most individuals used stone tools. This population is under pressure from the local human community through the development of farms and release of domestic dogsCanis familiarisonto the island. The level of anthropogenic impact varied in each macaque groups' range and juvenile–infant composition varied with impact. The proportion of young was smaller in groups overlapping farms and was negatively correlated with the amount of dog activity in their range. We also found that coastal use by macaques was negatively related to living near plantations and that the dogs displaced macaques from the shores in 93% of their encounters. We conclude that human impact is negatively affecting Piak Nam Yai's macaques and are concerned this could disrupt the persistence of their stone-use tradition. we discuss the impact and the potential consequences, and we recommend better protection of coastal areas within Laem Son National Park.

scholarly journals Long-tailed macaques select mass of stone tools according to food type

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1630) ◽  
pp. 20120413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gumert ◽  
Suchinda Malaivijitnond
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Food Type ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Tool Selection ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Quasi Experimental

Tool selection can affect the success of a tool-based feeding task, and thus tool-using animals should select appropriate tools when processing foods. We performed a field experiment on Piak Nam Yai Island in Laem Son National Park, Thailand, to test whether Burmese long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis aurea ) selected stone tools according to food type. We baited the island's shores with stone sets (‘tool tests’) in an effort to attract macaques to use stones presented in a quasi-experimental design. Tool tests were placed at 344 locations for 126 days over a 2 year period, with each set containing four stones of different mass (categories: X, 40–60 g; S, 90–100 g; M, 150–200 g; and L, 400–1000 g). Tool tests were checked when we could access them. The number of times each tool test was checked varied (1–32), for a total of 1950 checks. We also studied 375 non-experimental stone tools that were found at naturally occurring tool-use sites. Our data were not collected by direct observation, but by inspecting stones after use. We found an association between stone mass and food type. In the tool tests, we found S-stones were chosen most often for attached oysters, and L-stones were chosen most often for unattached foods. L-stones were almost always chosen for larger unattached foods (greater than 3 cm length), while for smaller unattached foods (less than or equal to 3 cm length) selection was less skewed to L-stones and more evenly distributed between the M- and L-stone categories. In the non-experimental study, we found that mass varied significantly across five food categories (range: 16–5166 g). We reveal more detail on macaque stone tool mass than previous studies, showing that macaques select differing stone masses across a variety of tool-processed foods. Our study is the first step in investigating the behavioural and cognitive mechanisms that macaques are using during tool selection.

scholarly journals Habitual Stone-Tool Aided Extractive Foraging in White-Faced Capuchins, Cebus Capucinus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan J Barrett ◽  
Claudio M Monteza-moreno ◽  
Tamara DOGANDŽIĆ ◽  
Nicolas Zwyns ◽  
Alicia IBÁÑEZ ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
National Park ◽  
Resource Limitation ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cebus Capucinus ◽  
Hermit Crabs ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Extractive Foraging ◽  
First Case ◽  
One Year

ABSTRACTHabitual reliance on tool use is a marked behavioral difference between wild robust (genus Sapajus) and gracile (genus Cebus) capuchin monkeys. Despite being well studied and having a rich repertoire of social and extractive foraging traditions, Cebus sp have rarely been observed engaging in tool use and have never been reported to use stone tools. In contrast, habitual tool use and stone-tool use by Sapajus is widespread. We discuss factors which might explain these differences in patterns of tool use between Cebus and Sapajus. We then report the first case of habitual stone-tool use in a gracile capuchin: a population of white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator) in Coiba National Park, Panama who habitually rely on hammerstone and anvil tool use to access structurally protected food items in coastal areas including Terminalia catappa seeds, hermit crabs, marine snails, terrestrial crabs, and other items. This behavior has persisted on one island in Coiba National Park since at least 2004. From one year of camera trapping, we found that stone tool use is strongly male-biased. Of the 205 unique camera-trap-days where tool use was recorded, adult females were never observed to use stone-tools, although they were frequently recorded at the sites and engaged in scrounging behavior. Stone-tool use occurs year-round in this population, and over half of all identifiable individuals were observed participating. At the most active tool use site, 83.2% of days where capuchins were sighted corresponded with tool use. Capuchins inhabiting the Coiba archipelago are highly terrestrial, under decreased predation pressure and potentially experience resource limitation compared to mainland populations– three conditions considered important for the evolution of stone tool use. White-faced capuchin tool use in Coiba National Park thus offers unique opportunities to explore the ecological drivers and evolutionary underpinnings of stone tool use in a comparative within- and between-species context.

scholarly journals Habitual stone-tool-aided extractive foraging in white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 181002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan J. Barrett ◽  
Claudio M. Monteza-Moreno ◽  
Tamara Dogandžić ◽  
Nicolas Zwyns ◽  
Alicia Ibáñez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
National Park ◽  
Resource Limitation ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cebus Capucinus ◽  
Hermit Crabs ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Extractive Foraging ◽  
Marine Snails ◽  
First Case

Habitual reliance on tool use is a marked behavioural difference between wild robust (genus Sapajus ) and gracile (genus Cebus ) capuchin monkeys. Despite being well studied and having a rich repertoire of social and extractive foraging traditions, Cebus sp. rarely use tools and have never been observed using stone tools. By contrast, habitual tool use by Sapajus is widespread. We review theory and discuss factors which might explain these differences in patterns of tool use between Cebus and Sapajus . We then report the first case of habitual stone tool use in a gracile capuchin: a population of white-faced capuchins ( Cebus capucinus imitator ) in Coiba National Park, Panama who habitually rely on hammerstone and anvil tool use to access structurally protected food items in coastal areas including Terminalia catappa seeds, hermit crabs, marine snails, terrestrial crabs and other items. This behaviour has persisted on one island in Coiba National Park since at least 2004. From 1 year of camera trapping, we found that stone tool use is strongly male-biased. Of the 205 camera trap days where tool use was recorded, adult females were never observed to use stone tools, although they were frequently recorded at the sites and engaged in scrounging behaviour. Stone tool use occurs year-round in this population; over half of all identifiable individuals were observed participating. At the most active tool use site, 83.2% of days where capuchins were sighted corresponded with tool use. Capuchins inhabiting the Coiba archipelago are highly terrestrial, under decreased predation pressure and potentially experience resource limitation compared to mainland populations—three conditions considered important for the evolution of stone tool use. White-faced capuchin tool use in Coiba National Park thus offers unique opportunities to explore the ecological drivers and evolutionary underpinnings of stone tool use in a comparative within- and between-species context.

scholarly journals Group-specific archaeological signatures of stone tool use in wild macaques

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia V Luncz ◽  
Mike Gill ◽  
Tomos Proffitt ◽  
Magdalena S Svensson ◽  
Lars Kulik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Old World Monkeys ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Ecological Diversity ◽  
Early Stone Age

Stone tools in the prehistoric record are the most abundant source of evidence for understanding early hominin technological and cultural variation. The field of primate archaeology is well placed to improve our scientific knowledge by using the tool behaviours of living primates as models to test hypotheses related to the adoption of tools by early stone-age hominins. Previously we have shown that diversity in stone tool behaviour between neighbouring groups of long-tailed macaques (Macaca-fascicularis) could be explained by ecological and environmental circumstances (Luncz et al., 2017b). Here however, we report archaeological evidence, which shows that the selection and reuse of tools cannot entirely be explained by ecological diversity. These results suggest that tool-use may develop differently within species of old-world monkeys, and that the evidence of material culture can differ within the same timeframe at local geographic scales and in spite of shared environmental and ecological settings.

scholarly journals Evaluating the microscopic effect of brushing stone tools as a cleaning procedure

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonella Pedergnana ◽  
Ivan Calandra ◽  
Konstantin Bob ◽  
Walter Gneisinger ◽  
Eduardo Paixao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Current Trend ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Mechanical Action ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Common Procedure ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Micro Topography

Cleaning stone tool surfaces is a common procedure in lithic studies. The first step widely applied at any archaeological site (and/or at field laboratories) is the gross removal of sediment from the surfaces of artifacts. Lithic surface alterations due to mechanical action applied in wet or dry cleaning regimes have never been examined at a microscopic scale. This could have important implications in traceology, as any modern surface modifications inflicted on archaeological artifacts might compromise their functional interpretations. The current trend toward quantification of use-wear traces makes the testing even more important, as even slight, apparently invisible surface alterations might be measured.In order to evaluate the impact of common cleaning procedures, we undertook a controlled experiment. The main aim of this experiment was to assess the effects that brushing actions applied for removing sediment particles have on flint and quartzite surfaces.All surfaces were analyzed with confocal microscopy before and after having been brushed to quantify possible changes in the micro-topography. Surface roughness parameters (ISO 25178-2 among others) were applied.Nine parameters changed significantly when mechanical actions were applied to lithic surfaces, meaning that some changes in the surface micro-topography were detected. Therefore, archeologists need to be cautious when applying prolonged mechanical actions for cleaning archaeological stone tools.

Experimental Use of Clovis Weaponry and Tools on African Elephants

1989 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Frison
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
African Elephants ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Chipped Stone ◽  
Positive Statements ◽  
Hwange National Park ◽  
Experimental Use

Clovis projectile points and chipped-stone tools have been recovered in a number of archaeological sites in the New World, but these cannot be tested on mammoths, which we know from the archaeological evidence Clovis hunters were able to procure. Extensive culling of elephants in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe provided the necessary animals to test replicas of Clovis tools and weaponry. The experiments leave little doubt that Clovis projectile points can inflict lethal wounds on African elephants and that simple stone tools will perform the necessary butchering tasks. The physiology of mammoths and elephants is similar enough to make positive statements on the potential of this kind of stone-tool and weaponry assemblage, but we will never be able to compare elephant and mammoth behavior directly.

Testing Models of Handedness in Stone Tools

2019 ◽  
pp. 225-236
Author(s):  
Natalie Uomini ◽  
Lana Ruck
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Hand Preference ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Learning Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complexity Hypothesis

When, why, and how did humans develop the extreme right-handedness found in this species? As reviewed in this chapter, several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the distribution of handedness in humans. The social learning hypothesis posits that similarity in hand configuration between demonstrator and learner facilitates learning; the fighting hypothesis states that a left-hander minority is maintained by an advantage in close combat; and the task complexity hypothesis proposes that task complexity increases hand preference. The three hypotheses are compared in terms of how they might be detected in the stone tool record. The power of the archaeological record is carefully considered to address hand preference and handedness at the level of individuals and groups, and how stone tools can help to test the predictions of the various hypotheses for the evolution of right-handedness in our species.

Simple Mechanisms Can Explain Social Learning in Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris)

Ethology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 117 (8) ◽  
pp. 675-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorit Mersmann ◽  
Michael Tomasello ◽  
Josep Call ◽  
Juliane Kaminski ◽  
Michael Taborsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Canis Familiaris ◽  
Domestic Dogs

scholarly journals Naive, captive long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis fascicularis ) fail to individually and socially learn pound-hammering, a tool-use behaviour

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 171826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bandini ◽  
Claudio Tennie
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Macaca Fascicularis ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
Specific Technique ◽  
Learning Conditions ◽  
The Individual

A subspecies of long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis aurea; Mfa ) has been reported to use stone tools and a specific technique to process nuts in Southeast Asia, a behaviour known as ‘pound-hammering’. The aim of this study was to examine the development of pound-hammering in long-tailed macaques: whether this behavioural form can be individually learnt or whether it has to rely on some forms of social learning. Given the absence of Mfa from captivity, long-tailed macaques of a highly related subspecies ( Macaca fascicularis fascicularis; Mff ) were experimentally tested by providing them with the ecological materials necessary to show pound-hammering. A baseline was first carried out to observe whether pound-hammering would emerge spontaneously without social information. As this was not the case, different degrees of social information, culminating in a full demonstration of the behaviour, were provided. None of the subjects ( n  = 31) showed pound-hammering in any of the individual or social learning conditions. Although these data do not support the hypothesis that individual learning underlies this behaviour, no evidence was found that (at least) Mff learn pound-hammering socially either. We propose that other—potentially interacting—factors may determine whether this behaviour emerges in the various subspecies of long-tailed macaques, and provide a novel methodology to test the role of social and individual learning in the development of animal tool-use.

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