I’m not aware of the lesser apes doing anything but picking up existing objects to use as tools. If they do I’d consider them tool makers. I’d say the difference is any modification to make an existing object a better tool. So deliberately cleaning off the twigs would qualify if it improves the tool. There is a cognitive leap at that point.
Found a reference here claiming that a study of Capuchin monkeys in captivity observed them not just using tools, but modifying them for specific tasks. See page 82:
Then I would consider them tool makers. Though in your cite it’s noted that the observed cases might be based on trial and error manipulation and not intentional actions.
Sure but it’s just another data point to show how flawed the OP’s premise is:
• Tool Making goes back at least to the common ancestor of Hominidae (15 - 20 million years ago)
• Tool Use, goes back probably to the common ancestor of Primates ( 55 - 58 million years ago)
I’m not aware of tool use by gibbons or siamangs in the wild. I’d be interested in seeing a cite.
I’m going to say you’re right because all the references I find are about gibbons in captivity. This reportwas very interesting because it spends time on the evaluation of their cognitive abilities. I retract my nit-pick.
Just to be clear, when I said “I am not aware”, I meant that in the sense that “I could very well be wrong”, not in the sense that “If it were so, I would be aware of it”.
That’s ok, I should have looked for something about tool use in the wild, just as I shouldn’t conclude that monkeys ride bicycles in the wild even though I’ve seen them do that at the circus.
We can always make tools & fire will be with us so long as we have lightning & I see no end in that so what was the other, oh yes, technology. Our first technical achievement was the making of an ax & then there was/is the bow and spear. Not to mention the construction of a shelter to protect us from the cold and rain.
Technology just comes with the passing of time. Like it or not.
In my view (:-
Humans have always been tool users, as several have said. I’d like to add that we have weaker muscles and smaller teeth than our near relatives, and both are only feasible for an ape that can use tools (and probably fire.)
By the way, I have tried to knapp flint and use a fire bow. My flint edges weren’t great, but were serviceable. I’d guess that most random humans with appropriate local rocks would learn to make edges. I was not able to make fire. I know the tool worked, because I watched a guy start a fire with it after I gave up. But that takes non-trivial skill. Banking and preserving an existing fire, however, is very easy. I used to do it as a kid in an ordinary fireplace just to see if I could (we had plenty of matches) and I can’t remember ever failing.
By "lesser apes, I assume you mean gibbons, the only apes which aren’t tool users AFAIK. But gorillas are, bonobos are, orangutans are and many different non-ape monkeys are, which is why I say the behaviour is likely pre-hominid. Tool-use is prevalent in many separate families across the whole simian order, including both platyrrhines and catarrhines (but not in lemurs, tarsiers or lorises AFAIK). The alternative is that it’s separately evolved in e.g capuchins who use hammer-stones to crack nuts, baboons who use rocks as missile weapons, spear-fishing orangutans and crab-eating macaques who use rocks to open shellfish. Which makes my friend William of Ockham nervous.
I don’t think our dear friend Ockham would be too nervous about tool use by some monkeys and the great apes as being convergent evolution, especially since the lesser apes are not known to be tool users. I’m not saying you’re wrong on that point, just that I don’t see it as clear as you do. All great apes (including man) use tools and so it is almost certain that our common (ape) ancestor used tools. That cannot be said about other sub-groupings.
But I’ll nit pick one last time. You didn’t say it was “likely”, you said “we’ve been”, which is a declarative statement (without a qualifier).
My own take would be: We’ve most likely been tool users as long as we’ve been great apes, and quite possibly as long as we’ve been what we now commonly call monkeys.
In evolutionary biology, if a trait is found throughout a group except for one or a few descendant clades, the assumption tends to be that the trait was lost in the clades that lack it, rather than that it evolved independently several times. Absence of the trait in gibbons represents a single loss, while its presence in platyrrhines, catarrhines, and Great Apes implies at least three independent origins if it wasn’t present in the common ancestor of gibbons and platyrrhines. A common origin would be the most parsimonious explanation.
In conjunction with their brachiating habit, gibbons have hands that are probably much less effective for handling objects than those of many other primates, which could help explain the absence of tool use. (However, that doesn’t stop orangutans.)
Of course he would be - you’re postulating not one, not 2, but three convergent evolutionary lines. That’s two entities more than you need if you just call the gibbons a reversion, like Colibri outlines.
A valid nit.
I think the “quite possibly” is unnecessarily conservative hedging - “most probably” is a better fit, given how widespread tool use is in our order (and common enough in our class, too)