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[TechOn] Apes Learn Spear Usage
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2007/02/070223_chimps.shtml
And the condensed version for the TLDR crowd:
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Does anyone have more on this? I think it's amazing. Especially considering how there's the continued debate for/against evolution/creationism.
And on a bit of a tangent, also goes into the debate among academics of the intelligence of other species, and their ability to feel emotion, or as it's usually put, "exhibiting traits similar to ___."
Anyone else have thoughts on this? Or monkeys and spears in general? Perhaps some jokes about a certain Space Odyssey? How far behind would that roughly put them from us? A several hundred thousand years, or farther?
Edits: Spelling bad, ok? And grammar, she not doing so good either.
And the condensed version for the TLDR crowd:
+
Does anyone have more on this? I think it's amazing. Especially considering how there's the continued debate for/against evolution/creationism.
And on a bit of a tangent, also goes into the debate among academics of the intelligence of other species, and their ability to feel emotion, or as it's usually put, "exhibiting traits similar to ___."
Anyone else have thoughts on this? Or monkeys and spears in general? Perhaps some jokes about a certain Space Odyssey? How far behind would that roughly put them from us? A several hundred thousand years, or farther?
Edits: Spelling bad, ok? And grammar, she not doing so good either.
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I hope you noticed the website is for people learning English..
Well, it is in a section called "Learning English." I imagine it was an example article to show off some fancy English lingo. I mean, what high-class citizen doesn't use "gnaw" in everyday conversation?
Edit: Too slow -_-
Oh shit. My bad.
Uh...
Gee, it's great that I got that chainmail shirt, helmet and sword in the mail today! (do I look normal now? All that stuff's battle-ready, btw)
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But things aren't going to really kick off until we start trade with them and give them smallpox infested blankets!
Youtube plz? We've all seen "monkey washing cat", and even Colbert had that up on his show the other week, and more of the same would be great.
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Welcome to D&D!
It is only fair, seeing as they're probably responsible for giving us AIDS and most of the hemorrhagic fevers.
Biological weapons are totally technology. This is how we're going to withdraw troops from Iraq.
That said, yeah, this spear usage is pretty interesting.
As far as human ancestors go:
2.6 to 1.5 Million Years Ago
Homo habilis uses stone tools known now as Oldowan tools - pretty simple rocks that have been chipped to make them more useful. They were basically used for shearing flesh off of bones and for breaking open the bones to get the marrow. Chimps don't shape rocks, but they do use them to crack open nuts, and they have shown affinities for certain rocks that they'll keep around if they work well.
1.6 Million to 100 Thousand Years Ago
Homo erectus uses stone tools known now as Acheulean tools - they're similar to Oldowan tools, but the craftsman ship has drastically improved. Fire was most likely necessary for Homo erectus, but when exactly its use was mastered is controversial. Fire-tipped spears have been dated to around this time (fire-tipped as in the tip was hardened in a fire, not flaming itself)
300 Thousand to 30 Thousand Years Ago
Neandertals use stone tools we now call Mousterian tools. Craftsmanship improved even more, and tools had a wider variety of uses. Also worth noting, a 60 thousand year old artifact believed to be a flute is attributed to the Neandertals, who were also the first to regularly bury their dead.
By 40 Thousand Years Ago, there was pretty much an explosion of technology. Sewing needles, fishing harpoons, etc.
So...
tl;dr - Human ancestors used spears, with fire-hardened tips, more than 100 thousand years ago but probably less than 1.6 million.
wasn't on youtube (think it was an animal evolution special), and it wasn't funny either. i sorta remember that they were just just throwing sticks at rabbits.
Some of the dates are slightly different than my last post, but that happens.
An obvious point, IMO, but it is one that bears making - a lot of people still think of evolution as that progression from the little squiggly thing in the water to the cave man on the land like in the old cartoons. There's a lot of other things involved in human development than just tools - our ancestors lived in a different environment than chimps, which called for different behaviors, different bodies, and a different diet.
Something the linked article doesn't mention, but interests me somewhat: Could this be a learned skill and not developed by the chimps themselves? What we've taught captive chimps proves well enough that they're capable of far more advanced behavior than they show in the wild - syntactical language, puzzle solving, and they can learn remarkably complex tasks, and in college I had to read a piece about a man who tried to teach chimps to make stone tools. Their thumbs didn't give them the kind of grip for making them, but they could use them quite well. For whatever reason, they haven't developed those skills on their own, but they can be taught and they have been known to learn behaviors from watching humans (Like the chimp in a zoo in China that learned to smoke when after a visitor threw him a lit cigarette).
wut???
Yeah.
Learning to use lighters to make fire, to use backpacks to carry items, to walk upright, to play videogames, to drive golf carts....even primitive use of written language.
Bonobos are far ahead of chimps, I think.
Man, I read the OP and thought "Muahahaha, it would be awesome if I moved this to G&T" :P
I'm not surprised, they figured out termite-onna-stick ages ago.
(Next up: does this news mean chimp PCs now start with simple weapons proficiency at level 1?)
So, their repertoire of tools is expanding... I wonder if we'll see other steps in sophistication anytime soon.
In a lot of primate/ape studies, Bonobos are easier to work with because Chimps get really aggressive as they get older, while Bonobos tend to be pretty mellow thanks to their tendency to have wild sex all the time.
It is pretty interesting when you see them not just using tools but learning how to improve them. actually... it's kinda more scary than interesting...
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It really is amazing to look at a graph like that and think that an 8 year old from today would in many ways be more intelligent than all the people who came before in that 500,000 year timespan (pigment making would be beyond me, but sharpening rocks? putting barbs on hooks?) It's almost nuts to believe they took us that long to figure out.
Most zoos don't like them for exactly that reason :winky: