Orangutan Tool Use And The Evolution Of Technology

Commonly referred to as a hallmark of human evolution, tool use is often considered a complex skill. Paradoxically, however, tool use seems to be widespread in the animal kingdom and may consist of fairly simple behavioral actions. In this chapter we try to relate these somewhat contradictory views to the relatively rare occurrence of habitual and complex tool use in wild orangutans, especially when compared to wild chimpanzees. We propose that, in addition to the previously suggested factors (i.e., extractive foraging, social tolerance and intelligence), terrestriality may have been instrumental in the evolution of especially habitual (sensu McGrew & Marchant, 1997) and complex tool use, thus explaining the “orangutan tool paradox.” Our preliminary comparison of eight orangutan and ten chimpanzee study populations (descriptively, via a principal component analysis [PCA], and by testing predictions related to the four factors) does indeed point in this direction.