Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons^™

Fongoli Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Verus) Eats Banded Mongoose (Mungos Mungo), Stephanie L. Bogart, Jill D. Pruetz, D. Kante

Jill Pruetz

We provide the first evidence of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) preying upon a banded mongoose (Mungos mungo). A subadult female was observed consuming a banded mongoose at the Fongoli savanna chimpanzee study site, Senegal. This recording provides new data and adds a small carnivore to the list of animal prey known for the chimpanzee diet.

Use Of Caves By Savanna Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes Verus) In The Tomboronkoto Region Of Southeastern Senegal, Jill D. Pruetz

Jill Pruetz

Indirect evidence has been found to indicate that chimpanzees in the Tomboronkoto region of southeastern Senegal use natural caves during the late dry season (May-June) for resting and eating. The Tomboronkoto region is the site of a newly-initiated research project on the ecology and behavior of savanna chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are not yet habituated at this site. Tomboronkoto (12¼72ÕN, 12¼22ÕW) is approximately 48 km SE of the Assirik site in Parc National du Niokolo Koba in Senegal. This new study site is south of the Gambia River, while the Assirik area lies north of the river. At Tomboronkoto, chimpanzees are sympatric ...

Laterality In Termite-Fishing By Fongoli Chimpanzees: Preliminary Report, Paco Bertolani, Clarissa Scholes, Jill D. Pruetz, William C. Mcgrew

Jill Pruetz

Many studies in both free-ranging and captive apes have shown that some forms of laterality of hand function occur in non-human primates¹. However, true handedness (sensu McGrew and Marchant²), when most individuals show a skew in hand preference in the same direction across different tasks, seems to be restricted to humans. Other hominoids appear unlateralized in simpler tasks, such as reaching, picking up objects, and grooming³, but they show hand preference for more complex tasks, such as tool-using^{2, 4, 5} or elaborate food processing^{6, 7}.

Laterality in termite-fishing⁸ has been studied only at Gombe ...

Savanna Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes Verus) Prey On Patas Monkeys (Erythrocebus Patas) At Fongoli, Senegal, Jill D. Pruetz, Joshua L. Marshack

Jill Pruetz

Chimpanzees across Africa include some meat in their diet1. In most communities where chimpanzees have been studied over the long term, primate prey is apparently preferred over other animal prey, with red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus badius) comprising the most common monkey species eaten2. At Fongoli, Senegal, it is likely that chimpanzees have never had access to red colobus monkeys at this hot, dry and open site, although the range of red colobus monkeys (P.b. temminckii) in Senegal and adjacent countries in West Africa has diminished3. Fongoli chimpanzees are currently not sympatric with red colobus, although they eat vertebrate prey ...

Chimpanzees In Bandafassi Arrondissement, Southeastern Senegal: Field Surveys As A Basis For The Sustainable Community-Based Conservation, Maja Gašperšič, Jill D. Pruetz

Jill Pruetz

The western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) is considered as one of the most threatened ape species, facing a dramatic decline over the last decade1,2. The latest conservation action plans classified Senegal as “an exceptionally important priority area” for chimpanzee protection, which demands immediate attention3. Chimpanzees have been expatriated from at least two African countries and IUCN estimated the Senegalese population to be almost extinct, numbering between 200 and 4004. Most apes range in small isolated communities in intense sympatry with local ethnic groups. Major threats include human encroachment, deforestation for crops, gold and iron digging, along with limited pet ...

Update On The Assirik Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Verus) Population In Niokolo Koba National Park, Senegal, Jill D. Pruetz, Racine Ballahira, Waly Camara, Stacy Lindshield, Joshua L. Marshack, Anna Olson, Michel Sahdiako, Ulises Villalobos-Flores

Jill Pruetz

The Assirik, Senegal chimpanzee population was studied extensively by McGrew and colleagues in the Stirling African Primate Project (SAPP) in the late 1970s1 and surveyed by the Miami Assirik Pan Project (MAPP) in 20002. These chimpanzees (thought to represent a single community3), within the Niokolo Koba National Park (or Parc National du Niokolo Koba, PNNK), remain the only protected population in the country, with most of Senegal’s chimpanzees living in unprotected areas4. In 2012, the Iowa State Assirik Primate Project (ISAPP) surveyed Assirik and outlying areas in the PNNK to assess chimpanzee density and to explore the possibility of ...

Successful Return Of A Wild Infant Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Verus) To Its Natal Group After Capture By Poachers, Jill D. Pruetz, Dondo Kante

Jill Pruetz

We report the successful return of an infant chimpanzee, aged approximately nine months, to her mother following the infant’s capture by poachers. The infant received only minor wounds in the incident, but her mother received severe wounds from hunters’ dogs during the capture. One of us (DK) was able to confiscate the infant from the hunters without incident. She was kept in fairly isolated surroundings in order to minimize disease transmission from humans, until the fate of her mother was determined. Following five days in captivity, we successfully returned the infant to her mother. The infant and mother appear ...

Lethal Aggression In Pan Is Better Explained By Adaptive Strategies Than Human Impacts, Micahel L. Wilson, Christophe Boesch, Barbara Fruth, Takeshi Furuichi, Ian C. Gilby, Chie Hashimoto, Catherine L. Hobaiter, Gottifred Hohmann, Noriko Itoh, Kathelijne Koops, Julia N. Lloyd, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, John C. Mitani, Dues C. Mjungu, David Morgan, Martin N. Muller, Roger Mundry, Michio Nakamura, Jill D. Pruetz, Anne E. Pusey, Julia Riedel, Crickette Sanz, Anne M. Schel, Nicole Simmons, Michael Waller, David P. Watts, Francis White, Roman M. Wittig, Klaus Zuberbühler, Rcihard W. Wrangham

Jill Pruetz

Observations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) provide valuable comparative data for understanding the significance of conspecific killing. Two kinds of hypothesis have been proposed. Lethal violence is sometimes concluded to be the result of adaptive strategies, such that killers ultimately gain fitness benefits by increasing their access to resources such as food or mates^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. Alternatively, it could be a non-adaptive result of human impacts, such as habitat change or food provisioning^{6, 7, 8, 9}. To discriminate between these hypotheses we compiled information from 18 chimpanzee communities and 4 bonobo communities studied ...

Uniquely Human? A Reply To Zoon Politikon: The Evolutionary Origins Of Human Political Systems, Jill D. Pruetz

Jill Pruetz

The authors outline the evolutionary origins of a sociopolitical human niche that is largely dependent on material culture, events such as control of fire and cooking and the consequences of these developments (biological as well as cultural). They use a phylogenetic perspective to anchor their premise, so that their hypothesis is based on the available data on nonhuman primate behavior. However, detractors may find their scenario—which includes, in addition to those traits listed above, active sharing, cooperative hunting and breeding, lethal weapons and bipedal running—as another “just so” story in paleoanthropology. Beginning with the section on the control ...

Ethoarchaeology And Elementary Technology Of Unhabituated Wild Chimpanzees At Assirik, Senegal, West Africa, W.C. Mcgrew, P.J. Baldwin, L.F. Marchant, Jill D. Pruetz, S.E. Scott, C.E.G. Tutin

Jill Pruetz

Like other wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the savanna-dwelling apes of Assirik, Senegal, West Africa, make and use tools and so have an elementary technology. Unlike their more famous counterparts elsewhere in Africa, these apes are not observable at close range. Instead, they are amenable to etho-archaeological study, in which the indirect data of artifacts, remnants, and fecal contents add to the sparse behavioral data. These open-country hominoids show 15 behavioral patterns that appear to be material culture, in the minimal sense of socially learned behavioral diversity. These can be divided into subsistence (N = 7), social (5) and maintenance (3) activities ...

New Range Record For The Lesser Spot-Nosed Guenon (Cercopithecus Petaurista) In Southeastern Senegal, Jill D. Pruetz, A. Socha, D. Kante

Jill Pruetz

The lesser spot-nosed guenon (Cercopithecus petaurista Schreber 1774) was known to range, historically, in the southwestern or Casamance region of Senegal (Dupuy 1971); its status in that country has been questionable in more recent times1 (Figure 1). The recent sightings of a lesser spot-nosed guenon in southeastern Senegal (12º39’N, 12º13’W) to be reported here appear to be the first record for this species in the Kedougou (formerly, Tambacounda) region. The guenon was seen by researchers at the Fongoli study site where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) have been observed continuously since April 2001. Although Guinea baboons (Papio hamadryas papio ...

Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes Verus) Behavioral Responses To Stresses Associated With Living In A Savanna-Mosaic Environment: Implications For Hominin Adaptations To Open Habitats, Jill D. Pruetz, Paco Bertolani

Jill Pruetz

Anthropologists have long been interested in the behavioral ecology of nonhuman primates living in savannas given what we know of early hominin environments. As expected, chimpanzees in the Fongoli community in southeastern Sénégal show a unique suite of behavioral adaptations to stresses associated with their savanna habitat. While Fongoli chimpanzees are species-typical in certain regards, such as including ripe fruit in the diet during all months of the year, they also adjust their behavior to the particular stresses of this dry, hot and open environment. These behaviors include using caves as shelters during the dry season, soaking in pools of ...

Chimpanzee Accumulative Stone Throwing, Hjalmar S. Kühl, Ammie K. Kalan, Mimi Arandjelovic, Floris Aubert, Lucy D'Auvergne, Annemarie Goedmakers, Sorrel Jones, Laura Kehoe, Sebastien Regnaut, Alexander Tickle, Els Ton, Joost Van Schijndel, Ekwoge E. Abwe, Samuel Angedakin, Anthony Agbor, Emmanuel Ayuk Ayimisin, Emma Bailey, Mattia Besone, Matthieu Bonnet, Gregory Brazolla, Walentine Ebua Buh, Rebecca Chancellor, Chloe Cipoletta, Heather Cohen, Katherine Corogenes, Charlotte Coupland, Bryan Curran, Tobias Deschner, Karsten Dierks, Paula Dieguez, Emmanuel Dilambaka, Orume Diotoh, Dervla Dowd, Andrew Dunn, Henk Eshuis, Rumen Fernandez, Yisa Ginath, John Hart, Daniella Hedwig, Martjin Ter Heegde, Thurston Cleveland Hicks, Inaoyom Imong, Kathryn J. Jeffrey, Jessica Junker, Parag Kadam, Mohamed Kambi, Ivonne Kienast, Deo Kujirakwinja, Kevin Langergraber, Vincent Lapeyre, Juan Lapuente, Kevin Lee, Vera Leinert, Amelia Meier, Giovanna Maretti, Sergio Marrocoli, Tanyi Julius Mbi, Vianet Mihindou, Yasmin Moebius, David Morgan, Bethan Morgan, Felix Mulindahabi, Mizuki Murai, Protais Niyigabae, Emma Normand, Nicholas Ntare, Lucy Jayne Ormsby, Alex Piel, Jill D. Pruetz, Aaron Rundus, Crickette Sanz, Volker Sommer, Fiona Stewart, Nikki Tagg, Hildi Vanleeuwe, Virginie Vergnes, Jacob Willie, Roman M. Wittig, Klaus Zuberbuehle, Christophe Boesch

Jill Pruetz

The study of the archaeological remains of fossil hominins must rely on reconstructions to elucidate the behaviour that may have resulted in particular stone tools and their accumulation. Comparatively, stone tool use among living primates has illuminated behaviours that are also amenable to archaeological examination, permitting direct observations of the behaviour leading to artefacts and their assemblages to be incorporated. Here, we describe newly discovered stone tool-use behaviour and stone accumulation sites in wild chimpanzees reminiscent of human cairns. In addition to data from 17 mid- to long-term chimpanzee research sites, we sampled a further 34 Pan troglodytes communities. We ...

New Evidence On The Tool-Assisted Hunting Exhibited By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes Verus) In A Savannah Habitat At Fongoli, Sénégal, Jill D. Pruetz, P. Bertolani, K. Boyer Ontl, Stacy Marie Lindshield, Mack C. Shelley, E.G. Wessling

Jill Pruetz

For anthropologists, meat eating by primates like chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) warrants examination given the emphasis on hunting in human evolutionary history. As referential models, apes provide insight into the evolution of hominin hunting, given their phylogenetic relatedness and challenges reconstructing extinct hominin behaviour from palaeoanthropological evidence. Among chimpanzees, adult males are usually the main hunters, capturing vertebrate prey by hand. Savannah chimpanzees (P. t. verus) at Fongoli, Sénégal are the only known nonhuman population that systematically hunts vertebrate prey with tools, making them an important source for hypotheses of early hominin behaviour based on analogy. Here, we test the hypothesis ...

A Stylistic Analysis Using Multivariate Statistics Of Oneota Pottery From The Upper Mississippi, Blue Earth, And St. Croix River Valleys, Michelle Neumann

All Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Pottery is one of the most abundant artifact types recovered from late pre-contact habitations sites in the upper Midwest. As a material with inherent plasticity, pottery reflects changes in people's preferences and traditions in aspects of its form and design quickly through time and space. Analyzing different facets of pottery has the ability to provide extensive information about people in the past: their resource utilization, technology, traditions, economic exchange, regional interaction, ideology, and or group identity. Yet, a significant challenge in pottery analysis is deriving comprehensive and testable conclusions in terms of types and styles that reflect patterned cultural ...

The Effects Of Industrialization And Urbanization On Growth And Development: A Comparison Of Boys And Girls From Three Industrial European Skeletal Collections, Sarah Reedy

Doctoral Dissertations

Exposure to poor environments, malnutrition, and labor during childhood can lead to stunted height and increased mortality. Studies of skeletal samples from Industrial Era Europe show height is stunted when compared to Medieval samples, suggesting harsher conditions. While poor conditions can negatively impact all children, boys may be particularly disadvantaged, because girls can reserve nutritional components buffering them during times of stress. This study examines the environmental effects on growth in three Industrial European skeletal samples. Juveniles (0-18 years) from varied SES backgrounds were used to test three hypotheses.

H1) Industrial Era children will exhibit shorter femora relative to a ...

Juvenile Remains: Predicting Body Mass And Stature In Modern American Populations, Erin F E Pinkston

Theses and projects

There are increasing numbers of unidentified persons in the U.S. and abroad. To generate positive identifications, forensic anthropologists and others working in the medicolegal field employ a variety of methods to produce biological profiles to match to case files and missing persons databases. Body mass, and stature are two important components of a biological profile, and both can be estimated using regression formulae derived from skeletal metrics. In cases of unidentified juvenile remains, these are particularly important metrics, as it is difficult or impossible to determine sex in prepubescent remains, and the quality of ancestry estimation is currently under ...

Traditional Medicine Use In Chamorro Cué, Gral. E. Aquino, San Pedro, Paraguay, Noah Goyke

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Rural Paraguay presents great opportunities for investigation into the subtle differences in the use of medicinal plants across seasons and the urban versus rural dichotomy in a rapidly globalizing society. One of the most interesting opportunities is comparing a rural population to the population of an urban center that has be the destination of local migration from the rural communities surveyed. This study investigates the seasonal differences and difference between urban and rural residents in the type of medication used to treat thirteen different common ailments and the source of medicinal plants used to treat those ailments. Interviews performed in ...

The Social Behavior Of Rehabilitated Spider Monkeys (Ateles Geoffroyi), Anthony Denice

All Master's Theses

The welfare of captive primates in laboratories, sanctuaries, and zoos is affected by various aspects of their environments. Although space restrictions increase aggression and stress-related behaviors in most captive animals, primates show diverse mechanisms for displacing stress and mitigating conflict. Many primates, including wild spider monkeys (genus Ateles), use these mechanisms flexibly to cope with social and environmental stressors. I investigated whether or not captive black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) use behavioral strategies to cope with potential stressors in captivity. In particular, I tested whether an affiliative or avoidant strategy was used in response to changes in available space and ...

Effects Of Terrain On Reconstructions Of Mobility In Past Populations, Erin M. Whittey

Masters Theses

Femoral and tibial diaphyseal geometry has frequently been used to evaluate mobility and other patterns of physical activity in past populations. The high antero-posterior (A-P) to medio-lateral (M-L) bending rigidity ratio (I_X/I_Y) typical of many hunter-gatherer femora, for instance, may reflect mechanical loads associated with long distance travel. The possible confounding effect of physical terrain on lower limb diaphyseal morphology is rarely evaluated. This study investigated the possible effect of terrain on lower limb shape ratios (I_X/I_Y) and bending and torsional strength (Z_P) in adult skeletons from Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia ...