IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0121613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

First GIS Analysis of Modern Stone Tools Used by Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Bossou, Guinea, West Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Alfonso Benito-Calvo
  • Susana Carvalho
  • Adrian Arroyo
  • Tetsuro Matsuzawa
  • Ignacio de la Torre

Abstract

Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary roots of technology during human evolution. However, detailed analyses of chimpanzee stone artifacts are still lacking, thus precluding a comparison with the earliest archaeological record. This paper presents the first systematic study of stone tools used by wild chimpanzees to crack open nuts in Bossou (Guinea-Conakry), and applies pioneering analytical techniques to such artifacts. Automatic morphometric GIS classification enabled to create maps of use wear over the stone tools (anvils, hammers, and hammers/ anvils), which were blind tested with GIS spatial analysis of damage patterns identified visually. Our analysis shows that chimpanzee stone tool use wear can be systematized and specific damage patterns discerned, allowing to discriminate between active and passive pounders in lithic assemblages. In summary, our results demonstrate the heuristic potential of combined suites of GIS techniques for the analysis of battered artifacts, and have enabled creating a referential framework of analysis in which wild chimpanzee battered tools can for the first time be directly compared to the early archaeological record.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfonso Benito-Calvo & Susana Carvalho & Adrian Arroyo & Tetsuro Matsuzawa & Ignacio de la Torre, 2015. "First GIS Analysis of Modern Stone Tools Used by Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Bossou, Guinea, West Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0121613
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121613
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121613
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121613&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0121613?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M Gema Chacón & Florent Détroit & Aude Coudenneau & Marie-Hélène Moncel, 2016. "Morphometric Assessment of Convergent Tool Technology and Function during the Early Middle Palaeolithic: The Case of Payre, France," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-20, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0121613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.