#700 Claudio Tennie: Tool Behaviors in Great Apes, Cultural Transmission, and Cumulative Culture
Dr. Claudio Tennie is a Tenured Research Group Leader (“Tools and Culture among Early Hominins”) in the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen. In addition, he is an adjunct scientist at the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes. His main research triangulates what (if anything) makes human cognition unique - as well as why (and relatedly, when this happened and how often). In particular, he uses various methods and pathways to study the factors and the prehistorical beginnings that enabled the typical modern human “variant of culture”: cumulative culture of know-how.
In this episode, we talk about tool behaviors, and culture. We start with tool behaviors in apes, including flaked stone tools in orangutans and chimpanzees, and food cleaning in gorillas. We talk about what might have been the tool behaviors of early hominins. We discuss what we can learn by studying chimpanzees in captivity, and the psychological mechanisms that underly the acquisition of tool behaviors. We talk about children spontaneously inventing tool use behaviors, and cultural behaviors that do not need cultural transmission. We ask if human cognition is unique, and get into high-fidelity social learning and over-imitation. We talk about cumulative culture, the role teaching and curiosity play in it, and what distinguishes human culture from chimpanzee culture. Finally, we discuss if science can be understood from a cultural evolutionary perspective.
Time Links:
Intro
Tool behaviors in apes
Flaked stone tools in orangutans and chimpanzees, and food cleaning in gorillas
Tool use in early hominins
Studying chimpanzees in captivity
The psychological mechanisms that underly the acquisition of tool behaviors
Can children spontaneously invent tool use behaviors?
Cultural behaviors that do not need cultural transmission
Is human cognition unique?
High-fidelity social learning
Over-imitation
Cumulative culture
What distinguishes human culture from chimpanzee culture?
Teaching and curiosity, and their importance for cumulative culture
Can we understand science from a cultural evolutionary perspective?
Follow Dr. Tennie’s work!
Follow Dr. Tennie’s work:
University page: https://bit.ly/3jT8dW1
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3uWeOWj
Twitter handle: @CTennie