Chimpanzee Cultures

by Richard W. Wrangham (Editor), W. C. McGrew (Editor), Frans de Waal (Editor), Paul G. Heltne (Editor), Jane Goodall (Foreword by)

Overview

Do chimpanzees have something akin to culture? Bringing together studies of behavioral variation within and among chimpanzees and bonobos —the sibling species of the genus Pan—this book provides the basis for answering this question. In Chimpanzee Cultures, the world's leading authorities on chimpanzees and bonobos chronicle the animals' behaviors from one study site to the next, in both captive and wild groups, in laboratory and field settings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674116634
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/01/1996
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	7.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Richard W. Wrangham is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

William C. McGrew is Professor of Anthropology and Zoology at Miami University, Ohio.

Frans B. M. de Waal was Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Emory University and former director of the Living Links Center for the Advanced Study of Ape and Human Evolution at the Emory National Primate Research Center.

Paul G. Heltne, zoologist and primatologist, is President Emeritus of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.

Linda A. Marquardt was Editor of Publications at the Chicago Academy of Sciences between 1986 and 1992.

Table of Contents

Preface
Paul G. Helsne

Foreword
Jane Goodall

Study Sites in Africa

The Challenge of Behavioral Diversity
Richard W. Wrangham, Frans B.M. de Waal, and W. C. McGrew

Section I: Ecology

Overview—Ecology, Diversity, and Culture
Richard W. Wrangham

Tools Compared: The Material of Culture
W. C. McGrew

Party Size in Chimpanzees and Bonobos: A Reevaluation of Theory Based on Two Similarly Forested Sites
Colin A. Chapman, Frances J. White, and Richard W. Wrangham

The Significance of Terrestrial Herbaceous Foods for Bonobos, Chimpanzees, and Gorillas
Richard K. Malenky, Suchisa Kuroda, Evelyn Ono Vineberg, and Richard W. Wrangham

Hunting Strategies of Gombe and Taï Chimpanzees
Christophe Boesch

Comparative Locomotor Behavior of Chimpanzees and Bonobos: Species and Habitat Differences
Diane M. Doran and Kevin D. Hunt

Comparative Analyses of Nest-Building Behavior in Bonobos and Chimpanzees
Barbara Fruth and Gossfried Hohman

Diversity of Medicinal Plant Use by Chimpanzees in the Wild
Michael A. Huffman and Richard W. Wrangham

Section II: Social Relations

Overview—Diversity in Social Relations
W. C. McGrew

Social Role and Development of Noncopulatory Sexual Behavior of Wild Bonobos
Chie Hashimoto and Takeshi Furuichi

Grooming Relationships in Two Species of Chimpanzees
Yasuyuki Muroyama and Yukimaru Sugiyama

Reproductive Sucess Story: Variability Among Chimpanzees and Comparisons with Gorillas
Caroline E.G. Tusin

Ethological Studies of Chimpanzee Vocal Behavior
John C. Mitani

Pacifying Interventions at Arnhem Zoo and Gombe
Christopher Boehm

Social Relationships of Female Chimpanzees: Diversity Between Captive Social Groups
Kate C. Baker and Barbara B. Smuts

Chimpanzee's Adaptive Potential: A Comparison of Social Life Under Captive and Wild Conditions
Frans B.M. de Waal

What People are Saying About This

Chimpanzee Cultures beautifully conveys the experience of working with chimpanzees, our closest living relative...[It] gives us a better appreciation of the place of our own species in Nature.

Jane Goodall

Chimpanzee Cultures beautifully conveys the experience of working with chimpanzees, our closest living relative...[It] gives us a better appreciation of the place of our own species in Nature.

Editorial Reviews

This book is, quite simply, a wonderful review of current knowledge of the Pan genus.

Quarterly Review of Biology

Chimpanzee Cultures beautifully conveys the experience of working with chimpanzees, our closest living relative...[It] gives us a better appreciation of the place of our own species in Nature.

Jane Goodall

Chimpanzee Cultures is a title to catch the eye...The aims are made explicit at the outset: to create a discipline of ‘cultural primatology' by using the tools to the cultural sciences and encouraging the use of ethnography in comparing chimpanzee populations...The quality of material on the subject animals is high. All the papers are original, many containing previously unpublished data, and they do an excellent job of highlighting behavioural diversity...This is a book chiefly aimed at the scholarly community, yet it carries an important message for all of us. Wild chimpanzee populations continue to decline through habitat destruction and hunting for bush-meat: the bare bones of this are made clear in the book's final chapter by Jane Goodall. The dwindling of any species through human short-sightedness is depressing, but chimpanzees present a special case. Chimpanzee Cultures provides ample evidence that chimpanzees are not simply carbon copies of one another. The species may survive but the extinction of cultures may be proceeding as we speak.

Times Higher Education Supplement - Thomas Sambrook

This excellent volume introduces the state of the art in primatology. Its lessons are worth learning. There can be no philosophical understanding of what it means to be human apart from understanding what it means to be chimpanzee.

Common Knowledge - Barry Allen

This volume presents the best up-to-date collection of the current state of knowledge of most aspects of chimpanzee behaviour, and it spells out the dangers now facing the apes and their environments. The study of chimpanzee cultures is crying out for more information from the increasingly isolated and diminishing communities of these apes. This book shows what has to be done, and where.

Animal Behaviour - James R. Anderson

This excellent volume introduces the state of the art in primatology. Its lessons are worth learning. There can be no philosophical understanding of what it means to be human apart from understanding what it means to be chimpanzee.
— Barry Allen

Common Knowledge

Chimpanzee Cultures is a title to catch the eye...The aims are made explicit at the outset: to create a discipline of 'cultural primatology' by using the tools to the cultural sciences and encouraging the use of ethnography in comparing chimpanzee populations...The quality of material on the subject animals is high. All the papers are original, many containing previously unpublished data, and they do an excellent job of highlighting behavioural diversity...This is a book chiefly aimed at the scholarly community, yet it carries an important message for all of us. Wild chimpanzee populations continue to decline through habitat destruction and hunting for bush-meat: the bare bones of this are made clear in the book's final chapter by Jane Goodall. The dwindling of any species through human short-sightedness is depressing, but chimpanzees present a special case. Chimpanzee Cultures provides ample evidence that chimpanzees are not simply carbon copies of one another. The species may survive but the extinction of cultures may be proceeding as we speak.
— Thomas Sambrook

Times Higher Education Supplement

This volume presents the best up-to-date collection of the current state of knowledge of most aspects of chimpanzee behaviour, and it spells out the dangers now facing the apes and their environments. The study of chimpanzee cultures is crying out for more information from the increasingly isolated and diminishing communities of these apes. This book shows what has to be done, and where.
— James R. Anderson

Animal Behaviour

Authorities on chimpanzees and bonobos compare the animals' behaviors from one study site to the next, in captive and wild groups, and demonstrate that nature and culture play important roles in the behavior of the Pan species. Sections on ecology, social relations, and cognition discuss hunting strategies, medicinal plant use by chimpanzees in the wild, chimpanzee vocal behavior, individual differences in cognitive abilities, and the question of chimpanzee culture. Includes a foreword by Jane Goodall, plus b&w photos and drawings. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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