Abstract
Recent debates have questioned the extent to which culturally-transmitted norms drive behavioral variation in resource sharing across human populations. We shed new light on this discussion by examining the group-level variation in the social dynamics and resource sharing of chimpanzees, a species that is highly social and forms long-term community associations but differs from humans in the extent to which cultural norms are adopted and enforced. We rely on theory developed in primate socioecology to guide our investigation in four neighboring chimpanzee groups at a sanctuary in Zambia. We used a combination of experimental and observational approaches to assess the distribution of resource holding potential in each group. In the first assessment, we measured the proportion of the population that gathered in a resource-rich zone, in the second we assessed naturally occurring social spacing via social network analysis, and in the third we assessed the degree to which benefits were equally distributed within the group. We report significant, stable group-level variation across these multiple measures, indicating that group-level variation in resource sharing and social tolerance is not necessarily reliant upon human-like cultural norms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 389-396 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Evolution and Human Behavior |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Professor Mark Bodamer, the Gonzaga University peanut swingers including Tom Sexton and Sam Freedgood, and the Social Climate Coding Team including Maddalena Tacchetti, Karoline Kneist, Marjolein van Ginneken, Marloes van der Goot and Becky Koomen. We are thankful to Daniel Nettle for providing valuable feedback on a draft of this manuscript. We are grateful to Innocent Mulenga for facilitating the research and Chrispin Kapongo for construction of the peanut swing. We thank the Zambian research team, including Patrick Chambatu, Thomson Mbilishi, Albert Mulembo, Goodson Muletele, Felix Chinyama, Patrick Mwika, Mumba Kawele, Misheck Kasongo, John Kayuya and Joseph Kasongo, the Zambia Wildlife Authority, The Chimfunshi Board of Trustees and Chimfunshi Research Advisory Board, and the technical group of the MPI in Nijmegen. Funding was provided in part by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (to K.A.C.).
Funding
We thank Professor Mark Bodamer, the Gonzaga University peanut swingers including Tom Sexton and Sam Freedgood, and the Social Climate Coding Team including Maddalena Tacchetti, Karoline Kneist, Marjolein van Ginneken, Marloes van der Goot and Becky Koomen. We are thankful to Daniel Nettle for providing valuable feedback on a draft of this manuscript. We are grateful to Innocent Mulenga for facilitating the research and Chrispin Kapongo for construction of the peanut swing. We thank the Zambian research team, including Patrick Chambatu, Thomson Mbilishi, Albert Mulembo, Goodson Muletele, Felix Chinyama, Patrick Mwika, Mumba Kawele, Misheck Kasongo, John Kayuya and Joseph Kasongo, the Zambia Wildlife Authority, The Chimfunshi Board of Trustees and Chimfunshi Research Advisory Board, and the technical group of the MPI in Nijmegen. Funding was provided in part by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (to K.A.C.).
Keywords
- Chimpanzees
- Culture
- Intraspecific variation
- Norms
- Sharing
- Social networks
- Social tolerance