Well-Tooled Primates
The evolutionary roots of our technological prowess may run deep
By Bruce Bower
In a lab in Japan, a macaque monkey eyes a small, plastic rake and performs an act that his wild brethren would never dream of doing. The animal grasps the utensil by its handle and extends it toward a food pellet placed beyond his reach. Slowly, the monkey manipulates the rake so that it drags the morsel close enough that he can grab it and pop it into his mouth. Researchers in the lab suspect that macaques possess an innate neural capacity for manipulating objects that encourages tool use, even if such behavior occurs rarely in the wild.
Meanwhile, at Indiana University in Bloomington, six people smash rocks together in the name of science. At the request of anthropologist Dietrich Stout, each participant chooses a pair of stones from a selection on a cart and strikes them together, again and again, trying to create sharp flakes suitable for use as cutting tools. After four 1-hour sessions, the budding toolmakers produce sharp flakes that look much like the stone tools made by human ancestors as many as 2.5 million years ago.