BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The cultured chimpanzee: nonsense or breakthrough? - Professor Wil
 liam McGrew\, Division of Biological Anthropology\, Department of Archaeol
 ogy and Anthropology 
DTSTART:20131111T180000Z
DTEND:20131111T190000Z
UID:TALK46593@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Beverley Larner
DESCRIPTION:Culture is said to be one of the defining characteristics of h
 umanity\, but to what extent\, if at all\, are there other cultural creatu
 res? To some critics\, the idea of ape culture is untenable\, as (e.g.) th
 ey lack language. To others\, culture (i.e. social learning) is widespread
 \, in many animals from songbirds to whales. Some of these issues are sema
 ntic or definitional\, but  productive\, objective methods can be applied 
 to ethological data. Cultured apes may present useful models for inferring
  the evolutionary origins of hominin culture. I present data (natural hist
 ory\, ethnography\, ethnology) from studies of wild chimpanzees across Afr
 ica\, emphasising not only cross-populational variation but also species-t
 ypical universals. Examples come from both material (e.g. lithic technolog
 y used in extractive foraging) and non-material culture (e.g. customary pe
 rformance of arbitrary social grooming patterns). I conclude with recent f
 indings on chimpanzee material culture in the past\, i.e. primate archaeol
 ogy. 
LOCATION:Bristol-Myers-Squibb Lecture theatre\, Department of Chemistry
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR