As many of the lectures have stated, specifically the first in the discussion of what each of the subfields (i.e. primatology) are, as well as in the content of this week (Primatology), we study non-human primates to create analogies to humans to better understand ourselves and our behaviors. The readings and videos of this week were particularly interesting and illuminating about the behaviors and traits of non-human primates, especially chimpanzees, and their similarity to ourselves. First, in the reading titled “What is War Good for? Ask a Chimpanzee.”, it was really surprising to imagine the violence that chimpanzees are capable of and because of the fission-fusion societies, there is potential for groups to form (like those tight bonds between related males) and violence to break out. Thinking of the fact that the violence isn’t senseless, like much of what ours (humans) can be, it makes logical sense that male chimpanzees would “resort to warfare to weaken their neighbors, with the ultimate goal of expanding their own territories, gaining new resources, and attracting new mates”. While it makes sense, it is surprising to me because before this week, I had not realized the capabilities of chimpanzees and the vast and similar (to humans) logic and reason they possess when decision-making, particularly with violence. Understanding violence by chimpanzees and its similarity to our own, can help us understand how we have evolved from such a common ancestor and makes us truly think about why we behave and decide the way we do. People are violent and injure and kill daily, however maybe if we try to also analyze that in the way we have non-human primates (like spider monkeys or chimpanzees), maybe it could illuminate something we have been missing (what are our violent evolutionary tendencies? Is it in our DNA?). There was also a great deal of surprising information in the movie “The New Chimpanzees”. The first is that chimpanzees have the capability to make and use tools, like humans do. In many of my high school classes, I had learned that that was what set us apart from other primates, but clearly that is not the case. The discussion by Christophe Boesch about chimpanzee and human hunting strategies may “have evolved before our forbearers left the forest” was also surprising that maybe before modern humans diverged that chimpanzees had also learned to invent and use tools. One of the most interesting and surprising things I learned in this movie was meat in chimpanzee diets. We know that meat is a big part (but becoming less) of human diets and finding out (first via lecture) that chimpanzees are basically the only other primate that eat meat. Learning how they hunt and trap smaller monkeys and feed on the carcass (and the power relations regarding who gets to and who does not get to eat it regardless of status outside of the killing i.e. alpha males) was surprising and gave a lot of insight into human evolution. Thinking about the strategies used by the male chimpanzees and their eating of meat gives us insight into how humans may have originally hunted animals in early and pre-societies and formed cultures that have meat as a large focus of the diet. Looking at the behaviors of chimpanzees and bonobos also can help us understand better our own culture as humans because of the ability of the aforementioned primates to respectively use violence and have peaceful coexistence with others in our species. Thinking about how each do such and the social behaviors in play can help us better understand how humans create war and peace with one another. Lastly, it is interesting to think about the impact of mothers on their children in human and non-human primates. While human fathers can and do teach their children specific important skills, the fact that that is also something mothers do in both species can help us understand better why and how we do it. So, as we see in these examples, looking at the specific things non-human primates do (mating, biological traits, and social interactions) we can compare (and make analogies) to what humans do to understand ourselves because of our similarities.