Monkey Business —

What apes and New World monkeys tell us about the origins of human culture, technology

and knowledge management

William P. Hall President Kororoit Institute Proponents and Supporters Assoc., Inc. - http://kororoit.org william-hall@bigpond.com http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net

Melbourne Emergence Meetup 11/09/2013 Access my research papers from Google Citations Access book project from Dropbox

Attribution CC BY

Context

Topic results from my professional interests from evolutionary biology to organizational knowledge management

What circumstances and processes in the evolution of humans have led to the emergence of human intelligence, social organization and a technological capacity to accumulate and manage cultural knowledge?

Is this a rare, one-off event or is the emergence of self-conscious intelligence potentially repeatable?

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Summary

Concepts – What it means to be human – Intelligence – Social organization – Technology – Knowledge and culture

Knowledge Knowledge sharing Knowledge management

Biological approach: – what do our near relatives and distant cousins tell us about the probability of human intelligence arising

Discussion and extrapolation

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Some concepts

Characterizing the human species

Social – Individuals depend for their survival on social and economic

connections with other people

– Social systems structured at several levels of organization

– Organizations function as economic species

Based on living knowledge – Individual knowledge

– Cultural knowledge

– Organizational knowledge

Technological – “Tools” extend & enhance organic capabilities to interact with

the external world

– Essentially all individual interactions with the natural world are now technologically mediated 5

Social organization

Social refers to the interactions of individuals with one another – Power & control

– Economic & resource exchange

– Sex, reproduction & family

– Knowledge & information exchange

Organization – Systems structured from repeated social

interactions of individuals over a period of time

– Organizations are entities in their own rights

– Organizational entities also interact as individuals with one another 6

Intelligence and knowledge

Intelligence is the capacity to solve problems of life

Karl Popper’s evolutionary theory of knowledge – Knowledge is solutions to problems

– Knowledge is constructed by solving the problems of life

– Knowledge grows by eliminating errors

Life cannot continue without having solutions to the problems of life

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Technology

Tools – Extend bodily capabilities

– Extend cognitive capabilities

– Extend capabilities & capacity for social interaction

The post-primate individual – Tools for the individual give the animal human

capabilities

The post-human individual – The human and the human’s tools are the individual

What do tools for social interaction provide?

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Tools + culture make humans

Comparative approach

Who else uses tools – Some birds (crows, Galapagos finches, bower birds)

– Monkeys (capuchin monkeys)

– Apes

In what contexts – Personal comfort & grooming

– Shelter

– Foraging & feeding

– Display & communication

– Defence against predation 9

Knowledge and culture

Individual learning vs sharing knowledge culturally

Knowledge essential to individual, group and cultural survival

Is the emergence of socio-technical organization a chance event or is it a predictable consequence of complex life?

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How did apes come to conquer the

world? —

Hypothesis: An expulsion from

Eden

Apes in the primeval forest (Adam and Eva in the Paradise Brueghel & Rubens - 1615)

Life was easy – Our ancestors could

subsist on fruits of the forest

– Available water

– Sleep in tree nests 12

Plate tectonics turned Eden into Hell

Spreading in Great Rift Valley – Lowered floor

– Raised mountains on either side

– Mountains block rain

Climate deterioration – Drier

– More variable

– Forests thorn scrub 13

The expulsion from the garden of Eden

Our direct ancestors were caught in a crack in the earth some 10-5 million years ago leading to climate deterioration – Formation of the

East African Rift

– Mountain building on each side of the rift blocks rain from east and west.

– Floor of the rift increasingly arid Grassy woodland

Thorn scrub

Savanna

– Adapting to a hard life by developing extractive foraging

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The dry and thorny cradle of mankind – it’s not Eden

15 Envisat

Finding enough food to make a living

Optimizing dietary quantity and quality Modes of acquisition/foraging

– Random picking (if it looks, smells, & tastes good, eat it) – Targeted picking (know what is in season and where to find it) – Extractive picking (know where edibles hide & how to extract them) – Tool assisted extraction & processing (find & make inedible edible)

Probing & spearing to extend the reach Shovelling to reach into the ground Pounding to break and smash Tearing and cutting to improve access Heating & drying to make more manipulable Cooking to alter chemistry Planting and husbandry Storage, transportation, & distribution

– Putting things together to make complex tools and processes

Extending cognition – Mapping the territory – Imagining where food might be hidden & how to access it – Retaining & sharing know how – Increase cognitive capacity to manage more/more complex knowledge 16

Forest-dwelling chimpanzee-human last common ancestor (CLCA)

– Primarily frugivorous with some tool-based extractive foraging – Fission-fusion social structure, some transfer of cultural knowledge – High selfishness, limited cooperation in defense and hunting

Savanna apes as extractive foragers & scavengers – Edible plant resources more widely scattered and harder to find – New kinds of resources needed

Roots, tubers and nuts Meats

– New dangers Big cats Hyenas Wild dogs

Selection pressures – Imagine where food might be hidden – Retain & transfer cultural knowledge – Increase memory & cognitive capacity

Climatic deterioration in E African Rift Valley expelled forest apes (our ancestors) from the Garden of Eden ~5 mya

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(Tattersall 2012)

Hominins using haak en steek branches as tools (Guthrie 2007): a. for driving big cats away from their prey. b. The simple conversion of a thorn branch into a "megathorn" lance for active hunting.

Cooperative defense and scavenging of carnivore kills cached in trees gave early hominins increased access to meat on the savanna

Savanna offers limited resource of edible plant foods but a rich supply of grass-eating herbivore meat (most food found on the ground)

Chimpanzee social defence against leopards is uncoordinated mobbing with clubs - Might deter leopard from returning to tree cache

- Not a pride of lions or mob of hyenas on ground

Simple requisites for grade shift to aggressive scavenging on the ground – Coordinated & cooperative defense and offense using effective deterrence

– Oldowan butchering tools for cutting skin & ligaments

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Cognitive advances enable grade shifting revolutions in cultural and organizational cognition

Accelerating change in extending human cognition – > 5 million years ago – social defence cooperative foraging &

hunting knowledge-based autopoietic groups

– ~ 2.0 mya - linguistically coordinated activities around campfires to share group knowledge (mime, dancing, singing, story-telling, myth, ritual)

– ~ 200 thousand years ago – mnemonic songlines apply ritual & method of loci to landscapes to build & retain cultural memories

– ~ 12 kya – mnemonic guilds & monumental architectures enable husbandry, settlement, farming & economic specialization

– ~ 7 kya – tokens & writing enable bureaucratic cities & states

– ~ 600 years ago – communications, coordination & rise of chartered companies

– ~ 100 ya – instant communication & rise of transnationals

– ~ Now – emergence of global brains & global cognition

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Knowledge-based revolutions in material technology cause grade shifts in the ecological nature of the human species

Accelerating change in our material technologies: – > 5 million years ago - Tool Making: sticks and stone tools plus

fire (~ 1 mya) extend human reach, diet and digestion

– ~ 11 thousand years ago - Agricultural Revolution: Ropes and digging implements control and manage non–human organic metabolism

– ~ 560 years ago Printing enables Reformation & Scientific Revolution

– ~ 2.5 ca - Industrial Revolution: extends/replaces human and animal muscle power with inorganic mechanical power

– ~ 50 years ago - Microelectronics Revolution: extends human cognitive capabilities with computers

– ~ 5 years ago - Cyborg Revolution: convergence of human and machine cognition with smartphones (today) and neural prosthetics (tomorrow)

What “caused” apes to conquer

the world? —

Facts

Our primate family tree

Our ancestors were frugivorous tree-dwellers

To our family, the Garden of Eden is a forest

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Source

Cercopithecidae Old World Monkeys

Hylobatidae Small apes

Gorillini

Ponginae

Hominina (Hominins)

Hominini (Hominines)

Panina

Apes – our close cousins

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Fossils + genomics tells us a lot about relationships to other primates

Comparative biology suggests how differences may have evolved

After Locke et al. 2011

Chimpanzees and bonobos suggest that our common ancestor was a smart tool user

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Videos from Bossou

Making thick and thin probes to fish for ants Clubs and a thrown rock deter/kill a leopard

Chimps learn hammer and anvil Breaking into a beehive

click picture for video

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Other chimp tools

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Types – Spears – used to kill & extract small mammalian

prey hiding in tree holes

– Digging sticks – used to harvest roots & tubers

– Mashers – large pestles used to mash hearts of palm trees

– Sponges – used to extract drinking water from tree holes

Cultural and ecological distribution – Culturally transmitted knowledge: tools used vary by

location from none to many

– Savanna chimpanzees have most extensive tool kits

Intelligence – Mechanical: chimps show

capacity to make & use a variety of tools

– Social: show significant tolerance & can cooperate on tasks

– Linguistic: both learn more than 250

word lexigrams

use in 2-3 word phrases

Bonobos don’t use tools in the wild – but it is clear that they could if they needed to!

– Kanzi is one smart ape! – watch extraordinary documentary

– Natural history – Nova – the last great ape

Bonobos and chimps in the lab

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click picture for video

Repeating the experiment in a

New World —

Was the emergence of human cognition a chance event or is it an expected outcome of

normal evolutionary processes?

Repeating the experiment in a New World

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~ 40 mya

The common ancestor of primates in both worlds ran along the interconnected highways of the tree canopy

– Small sized omnivore, with grasping hands & feet

– Ready supply of fruits, flowers, grubs & succulent leaves

– Avoids the predators of ground and air

Introducing smart monkeys from the New World

Many people see capuchins as smart pets – Size of a house cat!

– Life-span 40-45 years

29 Detail from "Students encounter an organ-grinder monkey on campus with man holding Times-Picayune box, Rice University," 1960. Rice University, http://hdl.handle.net/1911/77137

click picture for video

Another expulsion from the Garden of Eden Brueghel & Rubens knew them in 1615

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Will the real capuchin stand up!

A knowledgable capuchin prepares its own meal using a very heavy stone hammer and a log as an anvil (see other video for the full sequence behind the picture)

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click picture for video

Just how smart are capuchins?

Clip documented by a series of publications by Westergaard and colleagues from 1987-2007 independently repeated by other labs

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click picture for video

The capuchin’s knowledge-based nut-cracking industry

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6. select suitably dry nut(s)

7. transport nuts to anvil site

8. place nut in suitable anvil pit

9. strike nut with hammer to crack (60-70 blows may be required!!)

10. eat nut & possibly share with young scroungers learning the process

Steps in the industrial process 1. Select ripe nut

2. Peel

3. Dry in sun for several days

4. Select appropriate anvil site

5. Find & transport suitable hammer stone(s) to anvil site

click picture for video

Other technologies reported in the scientific literature

Capuchins in primeval forests not seen to use tools

Tool uses seen in various cultures – Defensive:

Bombarding jaguars and people with rocks and boulders from cliff-tops

Bashing snakes with sticks (too small to fight off leopards)

– Hunting: spearing lizards & small mammals in holes with sharp sticks

– Mining: using stone picks to extract more suitable stone from hillsides

– Cultivating: using stones and sticks as hoes and shovels to dig up edible roots & tubers

– Communication: females in oestrous throw stones towards desirable males to attract attention

Different groups use different tools 34

Platyrrhine ancestor colonized New World 30-40 mya

Could raft across narrower Atlantic in 1-2 weeks

Hystricomorph rodents colonized around same time 35

Genetic proliferation in & after last glaciation

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Sapajus Atlantic forest

Cebus Amazonia

6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 now

Forging a hard life in a barren landscape

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Amazonia

Thorn scrub

Atlantic forest

Caatinga and Cerrado Short rainy seasons (~ 2 months) Hot almost entirely rainless dry seasons Thorn scrubs and savanna

Adversity is the mother of intelligence and invention

Encephalization quotients of some primtes

Sapajus

Carrying two nuts and a hammer to an anvil site

Semi-terrestrial capuchins are being selected for bipedalism

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click picture for video

Could these monkeys rule the world with human grade cognition if it were not for humans?

Encephalization quotient equivalent to hominins ~ 4-3 mya

May have less symbolic and mechanical intelligence than chimps/bonobos

No ape other than humans shows as much understanding of its tools or manages as complex an industrial process as do Sapajus

Clear evidence for cultural sharing and transmission of sophisticated survival knowledge

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What do you think?

Virgil has the nuts, Vulcan has the knife

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click picture for video