Chimps And Culture

Our book defines culture by information that is learned from information that is learned from “imitation, teaching, or some other form of social learning” (Boyd & Silk 2015: A5). But, in class we have learned that many anthropologists believe a slight variation of that definition. A standard definition is culture being a groups shared behaviors, values, and beliefs that are acquired through learning, and that we use these to adapt to our environment. But who were the first humans to have culture? In the video that we watched in class New Chimps, we saw how chimps learned from each other. Each group of chimps had their own way of teaching and doing things. Part of the video explained how they found a group of chimps that would leave “markers”
Though there is no true archeological evidence to support that early humans have culture, it is assumed that there must be some sort of culture or way of living for these early humans to communicate with each other. Without culture, hunting techniques would not have been passed down from generation to generation. An evidence of culture from the early humans would be from the Middle Stone Age roughly seventy thousand years ago. In southern Africa during the middle stone age, the early humans used model five tools (Boyd & Silk, 2015: 346). The first sophisticated tool used was a symmetrical blade created by pressure flaking which is when you use a tool and apply pressure to flake it into the shape that is desired. The second tool is composed of microliths which are very small stones used as tools. They were made to be shaped to have it sharp on one side and flat on the other side (Boyd & Silk, 2015: 346). Constructing these blades are very difficult to make so there must have been some form of communication between each other to design these blades and to pass down what they look like and the techniques used to make them to the next