Tool-use in wild chimpanzees at Bossou, Guinea, West Africa

and in neighbouring communities

Tatyana Humle and Tetsuro Matsuzawa

University of Stirling, UK

Field studies of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have revealed distinctive differences in behavioural repertoire suggesting significant cultural variationacross populations and communities. Systematic synthesis of these cultural variants has recently been accomplished based primarily on information acquired from long-term field studies of chimpanzees across Africa. This comprehensive picture urges further inquiries into the processes and mechanisms of transmission taking place and into the shape and form of these cultural variants in wild chimpanzee populations. A long-term project, instigated by Matsuzawa and colleagues, Kyoto University Primate Research Institute (KUPRI), aims to address these issues (Matsuzawa & Yamakoshi, 1996, Matsuzawa et al, 1999). An area incorporating Bossou and the Monts Nimba, Guinea and the Ivory Coast side of the Nimba mountains and surrounding regions is being the focus of such an investigation. A small population of chimpanzees can be found at the Bossou site, which was set up in 1976 by professor Sugiyama, KUPRI, and three groups and maybe more reside at the Nimba site, Ivory Coast, established in 1993 by professor Matsuzawa. I have had the opportunity to visit Bossou three times and the Nimba site, Ivory Coast, twice since 1995 (Humle, 1999). During these visits and those of other researchers from KUPRI, we have been able to gather evidence of cultural variation between these populations and those found in the surrounding area (Matsuzawa & Yamakoshi, 1996, Matsuzawa et al, 1999). In collaboration with researchers and students from KUPRI, I have began and hope to continue to explore some of those differences specifically targeted at the oil-palm tree in terms of variance in use both between Bossou and Nimba and within Bossou with implications on cultural transmission. In this talk, I would like to summarise some of those findings, as well as briefly present the study which I aim to undertake, as part of my PhD project, and which I hope will contribute to the larger picture which we are seeking to obtain.

Matsuzawa, T., Takemoto, H., Hayakawa, S., & Shimada, M. (1999.) Diecke forest in Guinea. Pan Africa News, 6, 10-11.

Matsuzawa, T., & Yamakoshi, G. (1996). Comparison of chimpanzee material culture between Bossou and Nimba, West Africa. In A.E. Russon, K. A. Bard, & S. Parker (Ed.), Reaching into thought: The mind of the great apes (pp. 211-232). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Humle, T. (1999). New record of fishing for termites (Macrotermes) by the chimpanzees of Bossou (Pan troglodytes verus), Guinea. Pan Africa News, 6, 3-4.

Humle, Tatyana

Department of Psychology, University of Stirling

Stirling, Scotland FK9 4LA, UK

tatyana.humle@stir.ac.uk