¶ … Chimpanzees Have Culture?
The Culture of Chimpanzees
The term "culture" has many different definitions, but for purposes of this discussion it should be defined loosely as the values, goals, beliefs, and attitudes that are shared by and characterize a group, organization, or institution. For some time, anthropologists have been studying chimpanzees in order to determine whether they have culture as it relates to that definition. Field-studies on diet, hunting, and chimp tool-use have contributed to this issue and to the attempted resolution of it (McGrew, 1998). Noted anthropologist Jane Goodall has long stated that chimpanzees have behaviors which they have learned from others, and which have been passed down to them, therefore they have a culture (Goodall, 1986). Despite Goodall's opinions, not all anthropologists agree with what she believes and how she defines and understands culture. Anthropological primatologists are divided in their opinions of whether non-human primates like chimpanzees have culture, with some agreeing with Goodall and others arguing that...
When the driver looked in the hole, he found a dog sleeping inside -- and only when the dog was chased away would the elephant place the log into the hole (Holdrege, 2001). Octopi -- Suprisingly, octopi have been shown to use tools. The will retrieve discarded coconut shells, manipulate them, and then reassemble them to use as a makeshift shelter (Coghlan, 2009). Other octopi will use Jellyfish and Portugese
Since animals do not have a large brain capacity to accommodate such acts, normally the types of behaviors taught to these animals are usually simple and straightforward to master (Heyes, 1996). Use of teaching as a mode of behavioral transmission among animals is where an animal trainer takes time with the animal showing them how things are done such as requesting of food or even developing routes or ways to
pronounced differences between the habitats in which the scientists that wrote, respectively, In the Shadow of Man and the Wolves of Isle Royale: A Broken Balance, studied. The author of the former, Jane Goodall, was located relatively close to the equator in the Tanzanian jungles of Africa. Her counterpart, Rolf Peterson, was in the midlands of the United States near the Great Lakes in Michigan. Whereas Goodal was fairly
This postmodern view of culture is applicable in the 20th century analyses and discussions introduced by Boyd and Richerson. In effect, the first assumption explicates how culture brings forth history, and in history, "qualitative different trajectories" occur: "...the dynamics of the system must be path dependent; isolated populations or societies must tend to diverge even when they start from the same initial condition and evolve in similar environments" (186). After
Glimpse into Neanderthal Culture When one thinks of the Humanoid genus Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis (HSN) they picture a very primitive creature, simplistic in nature with few social complexities. However, upon close examination of several Neanderthan archeological sites, one will find the Neanderthal man had all of the necessary elements for the beginning of the formation of modern society. It was once thought that these elements were only present after Neanderthan culture
Another theorist with a different view is Chomsky (1988). Chomsky sees the acquisition of language as a process of input-output, what he calls a Cartesian view of language acquisition and language structure. He states: "We have an organism of which we know nothing. We know, or we can discover, what kind of data is available to it, and the first question we must try to answer is: what kind of
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