Abstract
Chimpanzees and orangutans have increasingly well documented local traditions involving learned skillful behaviors, often involving tools, which vary from place to place and are maintained by social transmission. These local traditions are most likely the antecedents of human culture. The complexity of local traditions is thought largely to be a function of the cumulative frequency of opportunities for social learning, and hence of the extent of tolerant gregarious foraging. Data on orangutans and chimpanzees are consistent with this hypothesis. This reliance on continued social transmission makes local traditions vulnerable to interruptions of transmission. I examine the disturbance hypothesis, which suggests that local extinction, hunting pressure, selective logging, and habitat loss in general affect the key parameters of the transmission process—innovation, diffusion, horizontal transmission—and hence will significantly impoverish the repertoire of complex skills for subsistence. Given current trends in orangutan habitats, serious erosion of local traditions is taking place. I also speculate that disturbance in the past has led to a significant loss of orangutan traditions.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Alcock, J. (1998). Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
Boesch, C. (1996). The emergence of cultures among wild chimpanzees. Proc. Brit. Acad. 88: 251–268.
Boesch, C., and Boesch, H. (1990).Tool use and tool making in wild chimpanzees.Folia Primatol. 54: 86–99.
Boesch, C., Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000). The Chimpanzees of the Ta¨? Forest. Behavioural Ecology and Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Boesch, C., Marchesi, P., Marchesi, N., Fruth, B., and Joulian, F. (1994). Is nut cracking in wild chimpanzees a cultural behaviour? J. Hum. Evol. 26: 325–338.
Boesch, C., and Tomasello, M. (1998). Chimpanzee and human cultures. Curr. Anthropol. 39: 591–614.
Byrne, R. W., and Byrne, J. M. E. (1993). Complex leaf gathering skills of mountain gorillas (Gorilla g. beringei): Variability and standardization. Am. J. Primatol. 31: 241–261.
Coussi-Korbel, S., and Fragaszy, D. M. (1995). On the relation between social dynamics and social learning. Anim. Behav. 50: 1441–1453.
Delgado, R. A., and van Schaik, C. P. (2000). The behavioral ecology and conservation of orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus): A tale of two islands. Evol. Anthropol. 9: 201–218.
Fox, E. A., Sitompul, A. F., and van Schaik, C. P. (1999). Intelligent tool use in wild Sumatran orangutans. In Parker, S. T., Miles, L., and Mitchell, R. (eds.), The Mentality of Gorillas and Orangutans, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 99–116.
Fragaszy, D. M., and Visalberghi, E. (1990). Social processes affecting the appearance of innovative behaviors in capuchin monkeys. Folia Primatol. 54: 155–165.
Galef, B. G., Jr. (1998). Tradition and imitation in animals. In Greenberg, H., and Haraway, M. M. (eds.), Comparative Psychology: A Handbook, Garland Publishing, New York. pp. 614–622.
Hooijer, D. A. (1961). The orang-utan in Niah cave pre-history. Sarawak Mus. J. 9: 408–421.
King, B. J. (1994). The Information Continuum: Evolution of Social Information Transfer in Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids, SAR Press, Santa Fe, NM.
MacKinnon, J. (1974). The behaviour and ecology of wild orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus). Anim. Behav. 22: 3–74.
Matsuzawa, T., and Yamakoshi, G. (1996). Comparison of chimpanzee material culture between Bossou and Nimba, West Africa. In Russon, A. E., Bard, K. A., and Parker, S. T. (eds.), Reaching Into Thought: The Mind of the Great Apes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 211–232.
McGrew, W. C. (1992).Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for Human Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
McGrew, W. C. (1998). Culture in nonhuman primates? Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 27: 310–328.
McGrew, W. C., Ham, R. M., White, L. T. J., Tutin, C. E. G., and Fernandez, M. (1997). Why don't chimpanzees in Gabon crack nuts? Intern. J. Primatol. 18: 353–374.
Pereira, M. E., and Fairbanks, L. A. (1993). Juvenile Primates. Life History, Development, and Behavior, Oxford University Press, New York.
Fragaszy, D. M., and Perry, S. (in press). Towards a biology of traditions. In Fragaszy,D. M., and Perry, S. (eds.), The Biology of Traditions. Cambridge University Press.
Rao, M., and van Schaik, C. P. (1997). The behavioral ecology of Sumateran orangutans in logged and unlogged forest. Trop. Biodiv. 4: 173–185.
Read, A. F., and Harvey, P. H. (1989). Life history differences among the eutherian radiations. J. Zool. (Lond.) 219: 329–353.
Richerson, P. J., and Boyd, R. (1992). Cultural inheritance and evolutionary ecology. In Smith, E. A., and Winterhalder, B. (eds.), Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior, Aldine de Gruyter, New York, pp. 61–92.
Rijksen, H.D., and Meijaard, E. (1999). OurVanishing Relative: The Status of Wild Orang-utans at the Close of the Twentieth Century, Tropenbos Publications, Wageningen.
Robinson, J. G., Redford, K. H., and Bennett, E. L. (1999). Wildlife harvest in logged tropical forests. Science 284: 595–596.
Russon, A. E. (1998).The nature and evolution of intelligence in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Primates 39: 485–503.
Russon, A. (2002). Return of the native: Cognition and site-specific expertise in orangutan rehabilitation. Int. J. Primatol. 23: 461–478.
Russon, A., and Galdikas, B. F. (1995). Constraints on great apes' imitation: Model and action selectivity in rehabilitant orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) imitation. J. Comp. Psychol. 109: 5–17.
Sugiyama, Y. (1997). Social traditions and the use of tool-composites by wild chimpanzees. Evol. Anthropol. 6: 23–27.
Tomasello, M., and Call, J. (1997). Primate Cognition, Oxford University Press, New York.
Tutin, C. E. G., Parnell, R. J., and White, F. (1996). Protecting seeds from primates: Examples from Diospyros spp. in the Lop´e Reserve, Gabon. J. Trop. Ecol. 12: 371–384.
van Schaik, C. P. (1999). Fission- fusion sociality in Sumatran orangutans. Primates 40: 73–90.
van Schaik, C. P. (in press). Local traditions in orangutans and chimpanzees: Social learning and social tolerance. In Fragaszy,D., and Perry, S. (eds.), The Biology of Traditions. Cambridge University Press.
van Schaik, C.P., Deaner, R.O., and Merrill, M.Y. (1999).The conditions for tool use in primates: Implications for the evolution of material culture. J. Hum. Evol. 36: 719–741.
van Schaik, C. P., Fox, E. A., and Sitompul, A. F. (1996). Manufacture and use of tools in wild Sumatran orangutans. Naturwiss. 83: 186–188.
van Schaik, C. P., Fox, E. A., and Fechtman, L. (in review). Individual variation in the rate of use of tree hole tools among wild orangutans: Implications for hominid evolution.
van Schaik, C. P., and Knott, C. D. (2001). Geographic variation in tool use on Neesia fruits in orangutans. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 114: 331–342.
van Schaik, C. P., Monk, K. A., and Robertson, J. M. Y. (2001). Dramatic decline in orang-utan numbers in the Leuser Ecosystem, northern Sumatra. Oryx 35: 14–25.
Whiten, A., Goodall, J., McGrew, W. C., Nishida, T., Reynolds, V., Sugiyama, Y., Tutin, C. E.G., Wrangham, R.W., and Boesch, C. (1999). Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature 399: 682–685.
Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology, Belknap Press, Cambridge.
Wrangham, R. W., de Waal, F. B. M., and McGrew, W. C. (1994). The challenge of behavioral diversity. In Wrangham, R. W., McGrew, W. C., de Waal, F. B. M., Heltne, P. G., and Marquardt, L. A. (eds.), Chimpanzee Cultures, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 1–18.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
van Schaik, C.P. Fragility of Traditions: The Disturbance Hypothesis for the Loss of Local Traditions in Orangutans. International Journal of Primatology 23, 527–538 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014965516127
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014965516127