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Analysis of wild macaque stone tools used to crack oil palm nuts
- Source :
- Royal Society Open Science, Royal Society Open Science, Vol 5, Iss 3 (2018)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- The discovery of oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis ) nut-cracking by wild long-tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis ) is significant for the study of non-human primate and hominin percussive behaviour. Up until now, only West African chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) and modern human populations were known to use stone hammers to crack open this particular hard-shelled palm nut. The addition of non-habituated, wild macaques increases our comparative dataset of primate lithic percussive behaviour focused on this one plant species. Here, we present an initial description of hammerstones used by macaques to crack oil palm nuts, recovered from active nut-cracking locations on Yao Noi Island, Ao Phang Nga National Park, Thailand. We combine a techno-typological approach with microscopic and macroscopic use-wear analysis of percussive damage to characterize the percussive signature of macaque palm oil nut-cracking tools. These artefacts are characterized by a high degree of battering and crushing on most surfaces, which is visible at both macro and microscopic levels. The degree and extent of this damage is a consequence of a dynamic interplay between a number of factors, including anvil morphology and macaque percussive techniques. Beyond the behavioural importance of these artefacts, macaque nut-cracking represents a new target for primate archaeological investigations, and opens new opportunities for comparisons between tool using primate species and with early hominin percussive behaviour, for which nut-cracking has been frequently inferred.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
percussive technology
Elaeis guineensis
Macaque
03 medical and health sciences
human evolution
biology.animal
Palm oil
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Primate
050102 behavioral science & comparative psychology
lcsh:Science
use-wear
Multidisciplinary
biology
05 social sciences
food and beverages
Biology (Whole Organism)
hammerstone
15. Life on land
biology.organism_classification
primate archaeology
Macaca fascicularis
030104 developmental biology
Human evolution
Evolutionary biology
Plant species
lcsh:Q
Palm
Hammerstone
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Royal Society Open Science, Royal Society Open Science, Vol 5, Iss 3 (2018)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ef54a2e2e27e609129671d67b80632d1