Study highlights role of young females in the spread of advanced tools in chimpanzees

A recent study published in the journal Science provided evidence that wild chimpanzees exhibit cumulative culture, learning and improving tool use across generations. The study, published Thursday, examined 35 communities of chimpanzees spread across Africa in three major regions of the continent.

To explore the connection between advanced behaviors like tool use and gene transmission, scientists analyzed data from 240 chimpanzees across Africa, studying their genetic connections and tool-use behaviors over the last 15,000 years. Researchers from universities and research institutions in Zurich, St. Andrews, Barcelona, Cambridge, Konstanz, and Vienna traced the genetic links between different chimpanzee groups over thousands of years to identify genetic similarities.

The European research team found a correlation between genetic exchanges among different populations in Africa and a greater chance of sharing complex technologies, indicating that chimpanzees with advanced tool-use skills are more likely to share DNA with others living far away.

Female chimpanzees play a crucial role in this cultural transmission. Only young female chimpanzees tend to leave their original troop to find mates, carrying their knowledge of tool use to new groups, which facilitates the transmission of advanced techniques across groups.

"These groundbreaking discoveries provide a new way to demonstrate that chimpanzees have a cumulative culture, albeit at an early stage of development," said Andrea Migliano, professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Zurich, highlighting that chimpanzee cultural evolution is still far slower than that of humans.

Cumulative culture involves social learning of behaviors too elaborate for an individual to discover entirely alone. For a long time, the ability of "cumulative cultural evolution" was considered unique to humans.

Scientists now argue that this might not be entirely true, as recent studies show that chimpanzees learn from peers and improve techniques across generations, challenging the notion of static culture.

Chimpanzees exhibit complex tool use, combining several tools for foraging. In the Goualougo Triangle in the Republic of Congo, chimpanzees probe the ground with a first stick to locate a termite mound, then make a brush with a second stick to collect the termites.

While chimpanzees have cumulative culture and can learn skills from each other, their cultural evolution is markedly slower than that of humans, who have made significant advancements from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

Chimpanzees interact far less with others outside their communities compared with humans, which hinders their ability to exchange ideas rapidly, and they are generally extremely xenophobic towards any member of another group.

The study raises the question: Why did human networks give rise to very complex interconnected societies? One hypothesis is that the more flexible social structure, greater degree of cooperation, and mobility of humans may have favored the sharing of knowledge.

Andrew Whiten suggests that the transition of the human lineage from forest to savanna imposed greater cooperation on humans, which is a source of innovation.

Migliano emphasizes the scale of migratory phenomena as a factor in cultural transmission among chimpanzees.

Science Times, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Folha de S.Paulo were among the news websites that reported on the finding.

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq