While exploring our lineage, it can be helpful to look for clues. We find this in the social fabric of the society of living chimpanzee and baboon descendants. This is not only because our hominid ancestors were most closely related to the chimpanzee ancestors but also because our ancestors shared the steppe environment with the baboon ancestors.
Common Factors
Although the chimpanzee and baboon differ significantly, they have interesting things in common. The most interesting thing about it is that their society is highly organized. Both chimpanzee and baboon societies are remarkably stable, orderly, and generally calm. It is certainly not a jumble of running, chewing, whimsical animals. Order is maintained through a complex relationship of five important factors. These factors are:
- 1. the relationship between mother and infant;
- 2. the age of the animal. As the animal gets older, that age regulates its progression from one role in the pack to another;
- 3. consanguinity. The animal’s continued relationship with its brother, sister, or mother;
- 4. the ratio of adult males to females;
- 5. the domination. So what rank an animal has in the group.
Human society
If we look at the above factors, we discover that they are still important regulating factors in our human society. For humans, chimpanzees and baboons, the problem of life is still mainly the problem of getting along with fellow group members.
Group life is important
Sherwood Washburn of Berkeley University and David Hamburg of Stanford University have studied primate behavior. Sherwood from the point of view of the anthropologist and David from the point of view of the psychiatrist. They wrote: “The group is a place of knowledge and experience, far beyond that of the individual members. In the group that experience is brought together and the generations are connected. The adaptive function of an extended biological youth is that it is an animal. time to learn During this period (if the animal learns from other members of the group) the animal is protected by them Slow development in isolation would simply spell disaster for the individual and lead to the extinction of the species. “
Prolonged biological youth
A male baboon takes six years to reach adulthood. A chimpanzee between the ages of 10 and 15. In order for one of the higher primates to learn all the things it needs to know in order to fit into the complex society in which it was born, that slow development is necessary.
Comparison with insect societies
Society of ants and bees
Sometimes the society of the higher primates is compared to that of the ants and bees. Yet those equations only apply to a certain extent. After all, these insects do indeed live in highly organized societies. But they learn almost nothing. Neither the ants nor the bees need to, because their reactions are hereditary programmed for them. Their behavior is subject to strict control.
Society of higher primates
However, in the dynamic society of the higher primates:
- where education takes the place of programming;
- where an individual is confronted with a multitude of daily choices and varying personal experiences,
a long period of childhood learning is absolutely necessary.
The chimpanzee apprenticeship
Chimpanzee apprenticeship is a lot like a game and it is.
The youth games
For a chimpanzee, youth games are what school is for human children. The chimpanzee cub watches its mother forage for food and searches for food itself. He watches her make a nest and makes little nests for himself (not to sleep in, just for fun).
Adolescence
During his adolescence, the young chimpanzee acquires from his peers not only the physical skills he later needs as an adult, but also the more complex psychological art of getting along with others. Not only to sense their moods, but also how to express one’s own moods so that they can be understood. Any chimpanzee who does not learn to get along properly with their peers will almost certainly never grow up.
Note
All this time the learning animal lives towards its place among the group members. First in completely aimless play, later in more meaningful pursuits that, several years later, will help determine the rank he will receive as an adult.
Sources of learning material
It can be concluded that there are two sources of learning material that determine the society of the primates:
- the family relationship (mother-child-relative);
- the broader relationship of an individual to all other members of the troop.