After reading this week’s lecture and watching many videos on primates, I have learned a lot about how similar humans are to other primates like chimpanzees. One of the key topics covered this week is about how non-human primates provide information about human evolution. One of these similarities is aggression. The author for “What is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee” gives us many examples of how chimpanzees and spider monkeys use similar motives and war techniques that remind me of our human original behaviors. Many chimpanzees will attack others if they are outside of their own area as they are protecting their territory. There is another example that shares how spider monkeys march together in single file lines as quiet and careful as they can be to not let the enemies know they are coming. The article also discusses how both chimpanzees and humans live in fission-fusion social systems, meaning they separate into smaller groups and form tight kinships with that group. Living in groups like these can play a large role in creating aggression between one another. I feel as these behaviors and techniques can very much be related back to our own aggression in historical war acts. We share many other similarities like walking on 2 legs (for some non-human primates), using tools to help us complete tasks in our everyday lives, living in social communities, and using language and symbols to communicate. 

Another interesting topic I learned about this week comes from the PDF link “Primate Classification and Phylogeny”. It explains how scientists classify primates into 2 different kinds of monkeys; New World monkeys and Old World monkeys, differing mostly by their dental structure. This was very surprising for me to learn because I feel as there are many other physical more visible characteristics you could separate them by rather than their dental structure. It makes sense once explain things from their scientific perspective because by categorizing them like this, they can tell which age monkey they are by looking at their fossils while other physical traits you wouldn’t be able to see. This article has helped me realize that it is important to be thinking about things from a more scientific approach as some things you think may be helpful and important now, but will be useless in the future. 

This weeks lecture has helped me to understand how much our biology and behavior has been affected through our evolution from other primates, especially those we are closely related too such as chimps. In terms of biology, by looking at our appearance and physical traits compared to other primates we can see how much we have evolved. Many of the traits that we have now have helped us to grow and were a key aspect in our survival. In terms of behavior, like I stated before, all primates share many traits like the way we act in our social communities, how we communicate using signs and language, and creating tools that simplify our lives. I believe the study of primates and how they are related to our human ancestors is extremely important in understanding human biology and behavior since we all descended from the same non human ancestor.