Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5f56664f6-n72nm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-07T19:06:36.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Ecology and cognition of tool use in chimpanzees

from Part I - Cognition of tool use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

By
Christophe Boesch
Edited by
Crickette M. Sanz ,
Josep Call  and
Christophe Boesch
Christophe Boesch
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Crickette M. Sanz
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Josep Call
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Christophe Boesch
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie, Germany
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Humans, as the most technological species, tend to assume that tool use is a sign of higher intelligence and that, over the course of our evolution, tools conferred a decisive advantage in the struggle to adapt to different environments (Mithen, 1996; Wynn, 2002; Wolpert, 2003; Dietrich et al., 2008). As such, animal species that use tools are considered more intelligent, while those that do not are judged as being less intelligent. This amounts to an anthropocentric judgment whereby humans adopt a human criterion to judge the adaptive skills of other species (Barrett et al., 2007; Goodrich & Allen, 2007). However, both phylogeny and ecology must be taken into account before one makes judgments about when and where we might expect tools to be used (Bluff et al., 2007; Hansell & Ruxton, 2008).

Tool use as an adaptation

Physical adaptations

If one remembers that, in most cases, tools are an extension of one’s body that allow an individual to solve tasks that cannot be solved with the body alone (Goodall, 1970; Beck, 1980; Boesch & Boesch, 1990), we must acknowledge that some primate species possess more efficient physical specializations than humans. For example, baboons have very hard, sharp teeth, which allow them to break open hard-shelled fruits that humans would be unable to open without the help of a tool (Kummer, 1968). Similarly, orangutans and gorillas, which are clearly physically stronger than humans, have been seen accessing food resources using sheer force in situations where humans would need to rely on tools (Schaik & Knott, 1996; Cipolletta et al., 2007). In addition to sheer force, it has been argued that hands help in tool use and this would then explain some of the distribution of tool use in the animal kingdom, although we should not forget that birds hold tools with their beaks and some otters use tools as well. Therefore, independent of the cognitive capacities required to use tools, tool use by animals should not be expected to occur in all situations where humans might use them. Our natural tendency to anthropomorphize hinders us from reaching a better understanding of the evolution of tool use, and it is imperative that we look directly to animals for answers about when tools might be beneficial.

Type
Chapter
Information
Tool Use in Animals
Cognition and Ecology
 , pp. 21 - 47
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, C. (2002). A skeptic’s progress. Biology and Philosophy, 17, 695–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambrose, S. (2001). Paleolithic technology and human evolution. Science, 291, 1748–1753.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ambrose, S. (2010). Coevolution of composite-tool technology, constructive memory and language: implications for the evolution of modern human behavior. Current Anthropology, 51(1), S135–S149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yousef, O. & van Peer, P. (2009). The chaîne opératoire approach in middle Paleolithic archeology. Current Anthropology, 50(1), 103–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Yousef, O., Vandermeersch, B., Arensburg, B., et al. (1992). The excavations in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel. Current Anthropology, 33, 497–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bard, K., Myowa-Yamakoshi, M., Tomonaga, M., et al. (2005). Group differences in the mutual gaze of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 615–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, L., Henzi, P. & Rendall, D. (2007). Social brains, simple minds: does social complexity really require cognitive complexity. Philosophical Transcriptions of the Royal Society of London B, 362, 561–575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, B. B. (1980). Animal Tool Behavior. New York: Garland Press.Google Scholar
Bluff, L., Weir, A., Rutz, C., Wimpenny, J. & Kalcelnik, A. (2007). Tool-related cognition in New Caledonian crows. Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 2, 1–25.Google Scholar
Bluff, L., Troscianko, J., Weir, A., Kalcelnik, A. & Rutz, C. (2010). Tool use by wild New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides at natural foraging sites. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 277, 1377–1385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boesch, C. (2003). Is culture a golden barrier between human and chimpanzee?Evolutionary Anthropology, 12, 26–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. (2007). What makes us human (Homo sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 121(3), 227–240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boesch, C. (2010). Away from ethnocentrism and anthropocentrism: towards a scientific understanding of “what makes us human.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2/3), 26–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. (2012). From material to symbolic cultures: culture in primates. In Valsiner, J. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1984). Mental map in wild chimpanzees: an analysis of hammer transports for nut cracking. Primates, 25, 160–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C. & Boesch, H. (1990). Tool use and tool making in wild chimpanzees. Folia Primatologica, 54, 86–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boesch, C. & Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000). The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boesch, C., Marchesi, P., Marchesi, N., Fruth, B. & Joulian, F. (1994). Is nut cracking in wild chimpanzees a cultural behaviour?Journal of Human Evolution, 26, 325–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C., Head, J. & Robbins, M. (2009). Complex toolsets for honey extraction among chimpanzees in Loango National Park, Gabon. Journal of Human Evolution, 56, 560–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, R. (1995). The Thinking Ape. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Byrne, R. (1997). The technical intelligence hypothesis: an additional evolutionary stimulus to intelligence? In Whiten, A. & Byrne, W. (eds.) Machiavellian Intelligence II: Extensions and Evaluations (pp. 289–311). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, R. (2004). The manual skills and cognition that lie behind hominid tool use. In Russon, A. & Begun, D. (eds.) The Evolution of Thought: Evolutionary Origin of Great Ape Intelligence (pp. 31–44). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canale, G., Guidorizzi, C., Kierulff, M. and Gatto, C. (2009). First record of tool use by wild populations of the yellow-breasted capuchin monkey (Cebus xanthosternos) and new records for the bearded capuchin (Cebus libidinosus). American Journal of Primatology, 71, 366–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpendale, J. & Lewis, C. (2004). Constructing an understanding of mind: the development of children’s social understanding within social interaction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 79–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carvalho, S., Cunha, E., Sousa, C. & Matsuzawa, T. (2008). Chaines opératoires and resource-exploitation strategies in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) nut cracking. Journal of Human Evolution, 55, 148–163.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cipolletta, C., Spagnolietti, N., Todd, A., et al. (2007). Termite feeding behavior of western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at Bai Hokou, Central African Republic. International Journal of Primatology, 28, 457–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dietrich, S., Toth, N., Schick, K. & Chaminade, T. (2008). Neural correlates of early Stone Age toolmaking: technology, language and cognition in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, 363, 1939–1949.Google Scholar
Emery, N. & Clayton, N. (2004). Mentality of crows: convergent evolution of intelligence in corvids and apes. Science, 306, 1903–1907.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fragaszy, D. (2007). Relational spatial reasoning and tool use in capuchin monkeys. A Primatologia no Brasil, 10, 521–546.Google Scholar
Fragaszy, D. & Visalberghi, E. (2004). Socially biased learning in monkeys. Learning and Behavior, 32(1), 24–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fragaszy, D., Kennedy, E., Murnane, A., et al. (2009). Navigating two-dimensional mazes: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and capuchins (Cebus apella sp.) profit from experience differently. Animal Cognition, 12, 491–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodall, J. (1968). Behaviour of free-living chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream area. Animal Behaviour Monograph, 1, 163–311.Google Scholar
Goodall, J. (1970). Tool-using in primates and other vertebrates. In Lehrmann, D. S., Hinde, R. A. & Shaw, E. (eds.) Advances in the Study of Behavior, Vol. 3 (pp. 195–249). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Goodrich, G. & Allen, C. (2007). Conditioned anti-anthropomorphism. Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 2, 147–150.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (1991). Language, tools, and the brain: the ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 531–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumert, M., Kluck, M. & Malaivijitnond, S. (2009). The physical characteristic and usage patterns of stone axe and pounding hammers used by long-tailed macaques in the Andaman Sea region of Thailand. American Journal of Primatology, 71, 594–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansell, M. & Ruxton, G. (2008). Setting tool use within the context of animal construction behaviour. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 23(2), 73–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hatley, T. & Kappelman, J. (1980). Bears, pigs, and Plio-Pleistocene hominids: a case for the exploitation of belowground food resources. Human Ecology, 8, 371–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinrich, J., Heine, S. & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 1–75.Google Scholar
Hernandez-Aguilar, A., Moore, J. & Pickering, T. (2007). Savanna chimpanzees use tools to harvest the underground storage organs of plants. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104(49), 19210–19213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, E., Wobber, V. & Call, J. (2008). Great apes’ (Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo pygmaeus) understanding of tool functional properties after limited experience. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 122(2), 220–230.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huber, L. & Gajdon, G. (2006). Technical intelligence in animals: the kea model. Animal Cognition, 9, 295–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunt, G. (1996). Manufacture and use of hook-tools by New Caledonian crows. Nature, 379, 249–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, G., Rutledge, R. & Gray, R. (2006). The right tool for the job: what strategies do wild New Caledonian crows use?Animal Cognition, 9, 307–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Ijzendoorn, M., Bard, K., Bakermans-Kranenberg, M. & Ivan, K. (2009). Enhancement of attachment and cognitive development of young nursery-reared chimpanzees in responsive versus standard care. Developmental Psychobiology, 51, 173–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inoue-Nakamura, N. & Matsuzawa, T. (1997). Development of stone tool use by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 111(2), 159–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keeley, B. (2004). Anthropomorphism, primatomorphism, mammalomorphism: understanding cross-species comparisons. Biology and Philosophy, 19, 521–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenward, B., Weir, A., Rutz, C. & Kacelnik, A. (2005). Tool manufacture by naive juvenile crows. Nature, 433, 121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kummer, H. (1968). Social Organization of Hamadryas Baboons: A Field Study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laden, G. & Wrangham, R. (2005). The rise of the hominids as an adaptive shift in fallback foods: plant underground storage organs (USOs) and australopith origins. Journal of Human Evolution, 49, 482–498.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leavens, D., Hopkins, W. & Bard, K. (2005). Understanding the point of chimpanzee pointing: epigenesis and ecological validity. Current Direction in Psychological Science, 14(4), 185–189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyn, H., Russell, J. & Hopkins, W. (2010). The impact of environment on the comprehension of declarative communication in apes. Psychological Science, 21(3), 360–365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin-Ordas, G. & Call, J. (2009). Assessing generalization within and between trap tasks in the great apes. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 22, 43–60.Google Scholar
Martin-Ordas, G., Call, J. & Colmenares, F. (2008). Tubes, tables and traps: great apes solve two functionally equivalent trap tasks but show no evidence of transfer across tasks. Animal Cognition, 11, 423–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matsuzawa, T. (2001). Primate foundations of human intelligence: a view of tool use in nonhuman primates and fossil hominids. In Matsuzawa, T. (ed.) Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior (pp. 3–25). Tokyo: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrew, W. (1974). Tool use by wild chimpanzees in feeding upon driver ants. Journal of Human Evolution, 3, 501–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPherron, S. (2000). Handaxes as a measure of the mental capabilities of early hominids. Journal of Archaeological Science, 27, 655–663.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercader, J., Barton, H., Gillespie, J., et al. (2007). 4,300-year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104(9), 3043–3048.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mithen, S. (1996). The Prehistory of Mind: The Cognitive Origin of Art and Science. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Möbius, Y., Boesch, C., Koops, K., Matsuzawa, T. & Humle, T. (2008). Cultural differences in army ant predation by West African chimpanzees? A comparative study of microecological variables. Animal Behaviour, 76, 37–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, B. & Abwe, E. (2006). Chimpanzees use stone hammers in Cameroon. Current Biology, 16(16), R632–R633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moura, A. C. & Lee, P. C. (2004). Capuchin stone tool use in Caatinga dry forest. Science, 306, 1909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mulcahy, N. J. & Call, J. (2006). How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task. Animal Cognition, 9, 193–199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nishida, T. & Hiraiwa, M. (1982). Natural history of a tool-using behaviour by wild chimpanzees in feeding upon wood-boring ants. Journal of Human Evolution, 11, 73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connell, S. & Dunbar, R. (2005). The perception of causality in chimpanzees (Pan spp.). Animal Cognition, 8, 60–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penn, D. & Povinelli, D. (2007). Causal cognition in human and nonhuman animals: a comparative, critical review. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 97–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Penn, D., Holyoak, K. & Povinelli, D. (2008). Darwin’s mistake: explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 109–178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Povinelli, D. (2000). Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s Theory of How the World Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Premack, D. (2007). Human and animal cognition: continuity and discontinuity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104(35), 13861–13867.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Santos, L., Miller, C. & Hauser, M. (2003). Representing tools: how two non-human primate species distinguish between the functionally relevant and irrelevant features of a tool. Animal Cognition, 6, 269–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos, L., Pearson, H., Spaepen, G., Tsao, F. & Hauser, M. (2006). Probing the limits of tool competence: experiments with two non-tool-using species (Cercopithecus aethiops and Saguinus oedipus). Animal Cognition, 9, 94–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanz, C. & Morgan, D. (2009). Flexible and persistent tool-using strategies in honey-gathering by wild chimpanzees. International Journal of Primatology, 30, 411–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanz, C., Morgan, D. & Gulick, S. (2004). New insights into chimpanzees, tools, and termites from the Congo Basin. American Naturalist, 164(5), 567–581.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Schaik, C. & Knott, C. (2001). Geographic variation in tool use on Neesia fruits in orangutans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 114, 331–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schöning, C., Humle, T., Möbius, Y. & McGrew, W. (2008). The nature of culture: technological variation in chimpanzee predation on army ants revisited. Journal of Human Evolution, 55, 48–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seed, A., Emery, N. & Clayton, N. (2009a). Intelligence in corvids and apes: a case of convergent evolution?Ethology, 115, 410–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seed, A., Call, J., Emery, N. & Clayton, N. (2009b). Chimpanzees solve the trap problem when the confound of tool-use is removed. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 35(1), 23–34.Google ScholarPubMed
Segall, M., Dasen, P., Berry, J. & Poortinga, Y. (1999). Human Behavior in Global Perspective: An Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology. 2nd edn. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Sharon, G. (2009). Acheulian giant-core technology: a worldwide perspective. Current Anthropology, 50(3), 335–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, F. & Silva, K. (2006). Humans’ folk physics is not enough to explain variations in their tool-using behavior. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 13(4), 689–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, F., Page, D. & Silva, K. (2005). Methodological-conceptual problems in the study of chimpanzees’ folk physics: how studies with adult humans can help. Learning and Behaviour, 53(1), 47–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Souto, A., Bione, C., Bastos, M., et al. (2011). Critically endangered blonde capuchins fish for termites and use new techniques to accomplish the task. Biology Letters, 7, 532–535.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spagnoletti, N., Visalberghi, E., Ottoni, E., Izar, P. & Fragazy, D. (2011). Stone tool use by adult wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus): frequency, efficiency and tool selectivity. Journal of Human Evolution, 61, 97–107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spencer, J., Smith, L. & Thelen, E. (2001). Tests of a dynamic systems account of the A-not-B error: the influence of prior experience on the spatial memory abilities of two-year-olds. Child Development, 72, 1327–1346.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sugiyama, Y. & Koman, J. (1979). Tool-using and -making behavior in wild chimpanzees at Bossou, Guinea. Primates, 20, 513–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumita, K., Kitahara-Frisch, J. & Norikoshi, K. (1985). The acquisition of stone-tool use in captive chimpanzees. Primates, 26(2), 168–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, A., Hunt, G., Holzhaider, J. & Gray, R. (2007). Spontaneous metatool use by New Caledonian crows. Current Biology, 17, 1504–1507.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Call, J. (1997). Primate Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T. & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675–691.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toth, N. & Schick, K. (1993). Early stone industries and inferences regarding language and cognition. In Gibson, K. & Ingold, T. (eds.) Tools, Language and Intelligence: Evolutionary Implications (pp. 346–362). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Visalberghi, E. & Fragaszy, D. (2006). What is challenging about tool use? The capuchin’s perspective. In Wasserman, E. A. & Zentall, T. R. (eds.) Comparative Cognition: Experimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence (pp. 529–552). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Visalberghi, E. & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of cause–effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, 15–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visalberghi, E. & Tomasello, M. (1998). Primate causal understanding in the physical and psychological domains. Behavioural Processes, 42, 189–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Visalberghi, E. & Trinca, L. (1989). Tool use in capuchin monkeys: distinguishing between performance and understanding. Primates, 30, 511–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visalberghi, E., Fragaszy, D., Ottoni, E., et al. (2007). Characteristics of hammer stones and anvils used by wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus) to crack open palm nuts. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132, 426–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Visalberghi, E., Addessi, E., Truppa, V., et al. (2009). Selection of effective stone tools by wild bearded capuchin monkeys. Current Biology, 19, 213–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vonk, J. & Subiaul, F. (2009). Do chimpanzees know what others can and cannot do? Reasoning about “capability.” Animal Cognition, 12, 267–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimpenny, J., Weir, A., Clayton, L., Rutz, C. & Kacelnik, A. (2009). Cognitive processes associated with sequential tool use in New Caledonian crows. PloS ONE, 4(8), e6471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolfheim, J. (1983). Primates of the World: Distribution, Abundance and Conservation. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Wolpert, L. (2003). Causal belief and the origins of technology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, 361, 1709–1719.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, T. (1993). Layers of thinking in tool behavior. In Ingold, T. & Gibson, K. (eds.) Tools, Language and Intelligence: Evolutionary Implications (pp. 389–406). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wynn, T. (2002). Archeology and cognitive evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 389–438.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynne, C. (2007). What are animals? Why anthropomorphism is still not a scientific approach to behavior. Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 2, 125–135.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×