🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2jodjl$n22@falcon.ccs.uwo.ca>,
James Nicoll + Jasmine <jdnicoll@engrg.uwo.ca> wrote:
>	This might sound like a really stupid question, but is chimpanzee
>behavior sufficiently non-hardwired for them to have 'cultures' which vary
>from place to place? If, for example, one took a chimpanzee born and raised
>in Africa and introduced it to the community of chimpanzees mentioned in
>Franz de Waalz [sp?] _Chimpanzee Politics_, would there be a notable difference
>in social behavior attributable to differences in culture?
			.
			.
			.
Yes.

Do *not* take my word for it; I'm not qualified to make judgments so 
ar from my expertise.  I can, however, point you in the direction of

	McGrew, W. C.
	1992	Chimpanzee Material Culture:  Implications
		for Human Evolution.  Cambridge University
		Press, New York

I have to wonder whether your question isn't a leading one, for I don't
see any way to answer it without going through McGrew.  I'll highlight
two aspects of *... Culture ...*:
1.  it gives particular attention to pongid "ethnography",
    that is, to reports of the varieties of social ways
    and patterns of different chimpanzee populations across
    tropical Africa; and
2.  McGrew analyzes the ontology of culture in terms of
    eight dimensions:  innovation; dissemination; standard-
    ization; durability; diffusion; tradition (credit Kroeber
    with these first six); non-subsistence; and freedom from
    human influence.

I think you'll find his evidence and arguments satisfying.

A couple of points on the newsgroups to which I've directed follow-ups:
McGrew's book also makes sophisticated use of paleoanthropology; and,
if we ever get a general-purpose FAQ written for sci.anthropology, we
need to make a prominent place for some of these points, for they do
indeed arise over and over.  Is there any problem with moving further
discussion from sci.bio to sci.bio.ethology?  I find the latter more
appropriate.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546