THINGS TO DO

There is plenty to do in cultural primatology, especially with chimpanzees. There are so many fragmented populations scattered across equatorial Africa from Senegal to Sudan, but so few are well known. Still, the number of cultures now described and somewhat studied is enough to think of doing multivariate analyses on the ethnographic data. For example, if termite-fishing and nut-cracking really are complementary in distribution, can this be explained by rainfall, latitude, etc? (It seems unlikely to be availability of prey: there appears to be an equivalent density of mounds of Macrotermes sp. at Gombe, where termite-fishing is customary, and Bossou, where it has been seen only once in 27 years!) How many points of origin are there for the widespread patterns of material culture, e.g. ant-dipping? We do not have the historical (or prehistorical?) data on actual origin of the customs anywhere, but this might be inferred from the geographical patterning of its distribution.

Co-ordination between field and laboratory – following the precedent set by Tetsuro Matsuzawa – should be expanded and extended. Why not set up a laboratory context in which it is advantageous for one ape to teach another, to see if teaching can play a major role in cultural transmission?Whynot provide an over-supply of introduced hammer and anvil stones at wild nut-cracking sites, to see true preferences for size, shape, and weight?