Non-human primates provide great amounts of information about human evolution even though they aren’t human.Primates can be human and animals. Primates are any group of mammals that include apes,monkeys and lemurs. Humans are similar to non-human primates that they both have the ability to walk upright. But, unlike humans non-human primates don’t always walk upright. Non-human primates may walk , crawl or climb as means of transportation. Humans don’t always start out walking similar to monkeys we crawl when we are born until we learn to walk. 

While watching the videos I found the one about non-human primates and humans using tools very interesting. Both use tools in their day to day lives to make them easier. One reason they both use tools is for food. Humans use knives , pans, pots, spoons and etc to cook a meal easily at home. Compared to primates which may use rocks as their tool to help open nuts for their dinner. I knew that we had so many similarities but I just didn’t think something as simple as tools would be a common trait. 

Another factor that non human primates help humans find about human evolution is social groups. Both primates human and non need socialization in their daily lives to function. It helps development and socialization skills improve over time.Non human primates live in large social groups.Chimpanzees live in large social groups in the wild compared to humans who typically just live with their immediate family. Chimpanzees which our humans closest relative only take years to grow up compared to humans which take twice as long to group up and develop socially and physically. I bet this helps scientists question if maybe humans lived in larger groups if we would develop or age faster.

Also a similarity between primates that helps us learn about human evolution is language and symbols. Many non-human primates can communicate using symbols. Both human and non-human primates are very vocal. They both use vocals after being born to let their mother know they are hunger or that they need something. I learned that gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees can even learn human sign language and communicate with humans. I find it so cool that chimpanzees are smart enough to learn sign language and even tell humans they want food. But then there is the human languages which are so complex and there is so many. The difference is that is our trait of language allows us to express so much which is what makes human primates so unique. 

Lastly I believe that these factors can all help us so deeply understand human evolution. We are so similar to chimpanzees genetically. Humans share 98.6% of out DNA with chimpanzees and they are the closest thing to us that we can study that isn’t us. Theses factors also can help show when humans started to branch off over time and become more complex with language and how non human primates use vocals rather than a language .