In the article “What is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee”, several parallels were made between human and non-human primates in terms of aggressive behavior, socialization, and survival through observation and anthropologic analysis that I found interesting and at times surprising. In terms of aggression, the authors provided several examples of similar motives and war like techniques in chimpanzees and spider monkeys that I related to the origins of contemporary human behavior. A group of chimpanzees, for example, were observed maliciously attacking a single chimpanzee that was outside of their region for a battle of power and territory. Similar occurrences of this behavior were observed in spider monkeys, but to a more deliberate extent. The article mentioned the findings of studying spider monkey attacks as they “…form a single-file line…As the monkeys marched into the homeland of the western community, they were as stealthy as a group of Green Berets. They didn’t snap twigs. They didn’t rustle leaves. Sometimes they would stop, stand up on two legs, take a look around, and listen”. Territory and resource dominance is often a gate-way into war just based on our historical background for humans, so this article made clear the inheritance of violence in our DNA.
The socialization of our ancestors also compares to the evolution of hominids as they both exhibit fission-fusion social systems. This type of socialization occurs as individuals change their “group” several times throughout the day as a means of food resource availability and survival. Traditional human cultures presumably lived the same way by interchanging the size of their group and location, which in turn formed uneven distributions of tight knit bonds and encourage violence for the protection of land and territory. Though it may be true of the influence of this type socialization had on the evolution of human behavior, the outcomes are variable between human and non-human primate observations.
Anthropologists, scientists, philosophers, and all in academia have worked to study how human behavior, and culture, works to exist and where it is going next. Looking at where we started and how we have evolved as a race is important in this task and allows us to track next possible moves in culture and humanity. By studying non-human primate biological, social, and cultural evolution, we can measure the extent to which our own lives might evolve. Of course the only factor that is certain is the variability of change within each individual, there is still measurable data to be accounted within shared DNA.
As a more scientific basis, using non-human primates can allow comparison between two species and observe differences to measure specificity. This could be an important use of developing human definitions of behavior and why they occur whether based on environment or biological predisposition. I’ve found this topic really interesting and hope to keep up with more research in the field to see investigate the topic further!
Source: “What is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee”. Eric Wayman. Oct 2012.
I like your quote about the spider monkeys carefully and deliberately attacking neighbor groups, as it really shows how similar monkeys can be to humans. The fact that they formed a single-file line and sometimes stopped to listen is wild because it is so human-like. I never thought about how studying the evolution of non-human primates could help explain how much we as humans have evolved and how much more we may evolve in the future. This seems like it could be very significant as it would indicate things that happened with the non-human primates that we need to monitor to prevent from happening to us. I feel like this field of science is a very underappreciated field because it isn’t discussed very much yet could have a heavy impact on our lives in the future.
I was interested in the same thing in the article “What is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee”,. About how its several parallels that were made between human and non-human primates in terms of aggressive behavior, socialization, and survival habits. Its so cool to think that the emotions and routines human have, non-primates feel and have done the exact same thing before us. We all share traits and behaviors. Even though were different, the way we live life is the same for all.
Hi! I really enjoyed reading your post and understanding your view on it all! I like how you explained the habits of the spider-monkey and compared it to the human species to create an overall well rounded comparison. The concept of moving to be around resources has obviously always been a “natural instinct” but the way it is done is interesting. In lecture, it explained that females tend to move to where the resources are and the males follow with the need of reproduction. Well they will also move around with the fight for competition. The spider-monkeys are very territorial so if they need to attack to protect either their community or resources they will do it. Between spider-monkeys, chimpanzees, and humans, this aggressive behavior seems to all be linked together but in different aspects. As a psychology major, I am huge on understanding behavior and why we carry out the actions we do, and majority of it is in our genes from our ancestors.