Ethoarchaeology and Elementary Technology of Unhabituated Wild Chimpanzees at Assirik, Senegal, West Africa

Like other wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the savanna-dwelling apes of Assirik, Senegal, West Africa, make and use tools and so have an elementary technology. Unlike their more famous counterparts elsewhere in Africa, these apes are not observable at close range. Instead, they are amenable to etho-archaeological study, in which the indirect data of artifacts, remnants, and fecal contents add to the sparse behavioral data. These open-country hominoids show 15 behavioral patterns that appear to be material culture, in the minimal sense of socially learned behavioral diversity. These can be divided into subsistence (N = 7), social (5) and maintenance (3) activities shown at customary, habitual, or present levels of frequency. Some patterns, such as Termite Fish or Baobab Crack, leave behind assemblages of hundreds of artifacts or remnants in predictable contexts at enduring worksites. Other patterns are rare and ephemeral and are known only from anecdotal data. Almost all artifacts and remnants are non-lithic, and so their perishability limits their discovery and analysis. Maximally productive use of such data depends on close collaboration between archaeology and primatolog

Ethoarchaeology and Elementary Technology of Unhabituated Wild Chimpanzees at Assirik, Senegal, West Africa

Like other wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the savanna-dwelling apes of Assirik, Senegal, West Africa, make and use tools and so have an elementary technology. Unlike their more famous counterparts elsewhere in Africa, these apes are not observable at close range. Instead, they are amenable to etho-archaeological study, in which the indirect data of artifacts, remnants, and fecal contents add to the sparse behavioral data. These open-country hominoids show 15 behavioral patterns that appear to be material culture, in the minimal sense of socially learned behavioral diversity. These can be divided into subsistence (N = 7), social (5) and maintenance (3) activities shown at customary, habitual, or present levels of frequency. Some patterns, such as Termite Fish or Baobab Crack, leave behind assemblages of hundreds of artifacts or remnants in predictable contexts at enduring worksites. Other patterns are rare and ephemeral and are known only from anecdotal data. Almost all artifacts and remnants are non-lithic, and so their perishability limits their discovery and analysis. Maximally productive use of such data depends on close collaboration between archaeology and primatologyThis is an article from PaleoAnthropology 1 (2003): 1. Posted with permission.</p

Herbaceous vegetation in different forest types in the Lope Reserve, Gabon: Implications for keystone food availability

The density of herbaceous plants in the families Marantaceae and Zingiberaceae was measured in different forest types within the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, to ascertain their distribution and availability as food for primates and elephants. Stem densities were measured in five sites with different logging histories and tree species composition. Data from a permanent five-kilometre transect at each site showed that densities varied widely between sites. It was also found that the phenology of fruit and leaf production varied both in different seasons and different forest types. It is suggested that differences in the stem densities of these plants can be explained in the Lopé Reserve by a model involving progressive savanna recolonization, and that the wide variations found must have profound implications for the past and present ranging behaviour of the animals which use them as keystone foods