Chimpanzee culture extends beyond matrilineal family units
Abstract
The “grooming handclasp” (GHC) is one of the most well-established cultural traditions in chimpanzees. A recent study by Wrangham et al. [1] reduced the cultural scope of GHC behavior by showing that GHC-style convergence is “explained by matrilineal relationship rather than conformity” [1]. Given that we have previously reported cultural differences in GHC-style preferences in captive chimpanzees [2], we tested Wrangham et al. [1]’s alternative view in the chimpanzee populations that our original results were based on. Using the same outcome variable as Wrangham et al. [1] – proportion high-arm grooming featuring palm-to-palm clasping (PPC) – we found that matrilineal relationships neither explained within-group homogeneity nor between-group heterogeneity, thereby corroborating our original conclusion that GHC can represent a group-level cultural tradition in chimpanzees.
Citation
van Leeuwen , E J C , Mundry , R , Cronin , K A , Bodamer , M & Haun , D B M 2017 , ' Chimpanzee culture extends beyond matrilineal family units ' , Current Biology , vol. 27 , no. 12 , pp. R588-R590 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.05.003
Publication
Current Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0960-9822Type
Journal article
Description
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement n° 609819 (SOMICS).Collections
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