Over the course of this week I was exposed to videos and readings that highlighted the importance of observing primates in order to understand or predict human evolution. Chimpanzees (and Bonobos) have a common ancestor with humans so are looked upon a lot for these observed behaviors and comparative anatomy when diving into human evolution.
The reading that piqued my interest was “What is War Good For? Ask a Chimpanzee1.” This explained what we can learn from apes and monkeys about human aggression. This stated that humans have a debatably fission-fusion society – along with spider monkeys and chimpanzees. This is when the make-up and size of a social group changes over time. An example of this would be, with spider monkeys, group members not hanging out in a group all day because of food being spread out, or females leaving the group when they come of age to mate and join another group; as a result the males in the group tend to be 1. Males in the group tend to be related as a result of that and they tend to form strong bonds that help them protect their territories.
But these fission-fusion societies entail violence. As groups are not all equal and resources can be scarce – members of a larger stronger group will attack another group (or a member) in order to gain those resources. This violence can also be the cause of wanting a mate or wanting to gain new territory as well. When looking at chimpanzees, they tend to be a “tight-knit community” this is because their rate of survival is in higher numbers, especially when combating predators. Bonobos (predicted to be a female-centered society) females tend to mingle with other group members and even mating with them (even if they are pregnant). This may be due to the willingness for the female to mate – which may also serve to reduce the males’ aggressiveness towards each other.
I thought this article was interesting because I saw behaviors in all of these societies that were similar in humans as well – such as the social capabilities in merging with other groups throughout the day like Bonobos as well as the tendency to stick in close knit groups when danger is sensed for support/increased survival rate.
We can better understand our own biology, behavior, and culture by studying non-human primates by continuing to observe them, behavior and (comparative) anatomy. Unfortunately, we cannot observe them all of the time, but it is important to continue to do so to not only find these similarities in behavior but the motives behind them as well. Finding motives behind the behavior can give insights to how our culture and behavior has developed to where it is now. And since archeological evidence can be limiting at times (and there is only so much you can get out of it without making a lot of predictions), it is important to observe and try to understand these non-human primates because our common ancestor will be an important key to link us back to understanding past and present effects of human evolution.
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