Illustration: Stone tools used by monkeys are everywhere. They use these stones to smash fruits or shellfish.
Illustration: Chimpanzees have a long history of using stones. It is difficult to prove how long it will take. Chimpanzees borrow stones from each other and give them back.
In fact, not only monkeys in Panama, but also primates in many places are using stones. For example, the stone tools used by chimpanzees 4,300 years ago were found in the rainforests of Ivory Coast, and now chimpanzees are also using stones as tools to crush fruits and hard shells. Long-bearded capuchin monkeys often use stone tools to open nuts and dig tubers, while long-tailed macaques break shellfish with stones. All these primate groups independently developed the behavior of using stones.
Illustration: Sea otters also have the habit of lying on the water and playing with stones.
But not primates, sea otters also use stones. They use stones to open shellfish, crabs and other hard-shelled animals. Some birds also break open eggshells with stones.
Illustration: This black-breasted hook-billed kite is hitting an emu (the second largest bird in the world) with a stone.
Darwin never worried, because his old man's famous saying was: Nature never jumps. His old man firmly believes that the prototype of what human beings know must be seen in other animals in nature, and there has never been an absolutely insurmountable gap between human beings and animals. In the past, many characteristics that humans naively thought belonged to human beings were discovered by zoologists in nature. Of course, monkeys in Panama used stones long ago, but zoologists only discovered them soon. Monkeys in some places besides Panama also use stones. They smashed shells with stones.
People can't be too self-centered and think that they know skills that other animals can't touch at all, but there is no need to feel inferior. The prototype is just the prototype. If you want to transform from a simple tool application to an animal that depends entirely on technology, it is not absolutely insurmountable, but if you want to surpass it, it is not much different from looking up at heaven in hell. During the millions of years of human evolution, many animals began to play with stones, but after playing with stones for millions of years, they did not evolve into animals that depended on science and technology, because their environment was too different from that of human ancestors.
Jane Goodall and Animal Tools
Illustration: Dr. jane goodall kicked off the use of tools by animals.
1960 The best definition of human beings is animals that make and use tools (in fact, because of social division of labor, most people only need to know how to use tools, but not how to make them). However, while observing chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Dr. Jane jane goodall saw two chimpanzees peel off twigs and leaves, chew them a little, and use them as tools to fish termites out of their nests to eat. Moreover, it takes a long time to learn this behavior. It takes years for young chimpanzees to observe this process and keep practicing, and finally they can master this technology of catching termites, which is completely different from spider webs and is not born. It is this discovery that started the discovery that animals are also using or even making simple tools, and also rewritten the definition of human beings.
Illustration: Bonobos catch termites.
This is the first time that non-human beings have created tools and used them to complete tasks. In response to this shocking discovery, Dr. Louis Leakey, Goode's mentor and famous archaeologist, declared: "Now we must redefine tools, redefine human beings, or accept chimpanzees as human beings."
This may be a bit dramatic, but this important discovery forces philosophers and anthropologists to re-evaluate the use of tools in the animal kingdom, because it is actually much more common than we originally thought. Many different kinds of animals use various tools to get food and water, or use them to comb themselves, protect themselves or for other purposes.
Primates who use tools
Get food
The most diverse and common use of tools in animals is to use tools to get food. Getting food is a matter of life and death, so animals will use many creative methods to get hard-to-get food sources. Many food gathering tools come from wooden sticks! For example, chimpanzees crush fruits with sticks, and chimpanzees also kill jungle monkeys with primitive spears. They inserted spears into holes where animals might sleep to finish hunting.
Illustration: Chimpanzees kill primate baby monkeys (jungle babies) hiding in tree holes with primitive spears.
Other primates collect honey with sticks. Only Sumatran orangutans have been observed to use as many as 54 tools to prey on insects or steal honey.
Alarm and self-protection
Orangutans invented whistles to warn predators. They peeled leaves from branches, put them on their lips, and made a squeak. When orangutans are disturbed or threatened by potential predators, they will try to stop predators in this way, and they will do the same. Smaller orangutans usually have leaves that make a loud noise, which increases their deterrence. In Sumatra, some orangutans also use leaves as gloves or seat covers to prevent prickly trees and fruits. Wild bonobos also use leaves to hold up umbrellas and keep out rain. In 2005, it was observed for the first time that a gorilla used a stick to judge the depth of water to find out the safe position where it could walk, because all gorillas could not swim.
Other unusual uses
Chimpanzees comb their teeth and noses with branches.
Chimpanzees also wipe their bottoms with leaves, so be careful when observing chimpanzees in the wild. They defecate in the nest, but they actually need to wipe their bottoms. Leaves are falling in the air. Not too pretty.
Orangutans and chimpanzees also use leaves as napkins to wipe their faces.
Some male and female orangutans also have sex toys to enhance the pleasure of masturbation.
By the way, a wave of human stone age
All animals that use stones, including monkeys and chimpanzees, are still in the stage of directly using ready-made stones as simple tools, which is far from the Stone Age of mankind and can only be used as the embryonic form of tools.
Humans experienced two very different stone ages:
1, the Paleolithic age of Homo sapiens' immediate primitive ancestors and close relatives, lasted for millions of years.
2. The Neolithic Age experienced after the birth of Homo sapiens (about tens of thousands of years ago) was called the cognitive revolution, and human beings suddenly began to understand and formally entered the era of the big bang of science and technology.
The difference between the Neolithic Age and the Paleolithic Age may be the difference between walking and sitting on a rocket. At present, the level of using stone tools by other animals is not as good as that of human ancestors or collateral relatives in Paleolithic age. Let's take a look at the stones used by the primitive ancestors of human beings in the Paleolithic Age.
Illustration: Paleolithic archaeology in Liaoning
This is a variety of stone tools excavated from the Paleolithic cultural archaeological site in Liaoning, China. Stone tools are not simple stones, but a set of production tools specially processed. Including the final shape and the material of the stone needed for processing, not all stones are suitable for processing into stone tools.
Paleolithic tools are similar, there are not many differences in the world, but they have all been processed to a certain extent, and different stone tools obviously have different ways of use, that is, the classification of tools has emerged.
Now let's look at the differences between the Neolithic Age and the Paleolithic Age.
Illustration: The exquisite Neolithic tools look like works of art, at the same time, the types of tools are advancing by leaps and bounds, and the shapes are emerging one after another. Only you can't think of them, and there is nothing they can't do. Of course, these tools are closely related to the life and aesthetic needs of primitive people. At this stage, in addition to stone tools, other materials are also included in the scope of tool manufacturing, such as bones, wood, natural gold and so on. In terms of stones, jade culture has been particularly developed in East Asia.
Illustration: Arrows made of Neolithic stones.
Illustration: Another key feature of Neolithic Age is combination. Most of the prototypes of many tools used by human beings today can be found in the Neolithic Age.
So it is not difficult to use stones or other tools, but there is still a long way to go before the real technical creatures.
Illustration: Tools carried by Oz the Iceman 5300 years ago.
Oz the Iceman brought three kinds of sidearms:
Long-range bow and arrow: a long bow made of yew, with a length of1.82m.. In his quiver, there are 12 arrows, in addition, there is a antler tool to sharpen the arrows.
Medium-distance axe: the handle of the axe is made of carefully processed purple shirt wood and is 60 cm long. The axe itself is made of pure copper and forged by a series of processes such as casting, cold forging, polishing and grinding, and its length is 10 cm. Axe body and handle are fixed with leather rope, and then bonded with tar made of birch.
Close-range dagger: a dagger made of flint. Even though metal has been used, stone is still a very useful tool, because there was no bronze at that time and it was not sharp enough to be used as a blunt instrument.
Illustration: How did humans climb to the top of the food chain?
Combined with the evolutionary history of human beings, as long as human beings don't die and don't give up their dominant niche, probably no second species will have the opportunity to embark on the evolutionary road of scientific and technological animals. It is not uncommon to use tools, but it is not easy to be an animal without tools. Nothing for nothing. If you want to make progress on tools, you have to give up some old survival advantages, and it is impossible to appear spontaneously without special environmental pressure.
Generally speaking, biological evolution is very short-sighted, and every evolution must have a net profit. There is never a long-term solution to catch big fish. First you lose money, and then you make a lot of money, which adds up to winning money, which is impossible in biological evolution. This is a game that must be won in every round. As long as you lose one round, such a mutant will be eliminated immediately.
As long as the dominant human occupies most of the biological resources in the world, there will probably never be a second technological creature on the earth, because it needs a very special living environment, in which any slight genetic mutation that leads to scientific and technological progress will be rewarded by natural selection, even if it will cause other harm!