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January 03, 2003:
The Cultured Orangutan @ http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000E93A0-9B33-1E14-8B3B809EC588EEDF For humans, the sputtering sound known as a raspberry is commonly considered a
contemptuous gesture. But among
some orangutans, the expression seems to simply signify that the utterer is
turning in for the night. Not all
orangutan groups mark the end of the day this way, however. In fact, according to a report
published today in the journal Science,
a raspberry before bed is one of 24 socially transmitted behaviors that
scientists say may represent cultural variation in the great apes. (kwc:
Does this explain Leno and Letterman?)
If the findings are confirmed by
additional field observations, they could push the origin of culture back nearly seven million years to the last common ancestor of
orangutans and the African apes. Man's
closest living relative, the chimpanzee, provides the best evidence for the
existence of nonhuman culture: scientists have identified 39 behavior patterns
that vary culturally among the animals. To investigate whether similar conduct
exists in orangutan groups, Carel P. van Schaik of Duke University and his
colleagues assessed previously collected data on six different wild populations
in Borneo and Sumatra.
"Culture requires more than just a mother-infant bond, but also
extensive social contact, and orangutans are at the low end of the sociability
spectrum," van Schaik says. (kwc: I knew some Kappa Kappa Phi’s who fit into
this category). Nevertheless, the team identified two dozen behaviors that fall
into three of the four categories of cultural elements: labels, signals and
skills (The fourth category is symbols, which only humans employ). Van Schaik notes that the group found
"the biggest behavioral repertoires within sites that showed the most
social contact, thus giving the animals the greatest opportunity to learn from
one another." Examples of
culturally-based behaviors that the scientists distinguished include using
leaves as napkins, using leafy branches to ward off attacking insects and
riding "snag" (dead trees that are falling toward the ground) for
sport. --Sarah Graham So, I propose that Futurework adopt as its “mascot” the highly cultured
orangutan, since posters and lurkers easily demonstrate at least “two dozen
behaviors that fall into three or four categories of cultural elements, labels,
signals and skills” not the least because we manage to “learn from one another”. Goodnight! Karen |
