New Scientist
Image: Tony Nastase Photography
Another non-human primate has entered the Stone Age – the fourth type known to have done so. One population of white-faced capuchins living in Panama routinely use stones to smash open nuts and shellfish.
Other nearby populations don’t make use of stone tools, which might suggest that primates – perhaps including our ancestors – stumble into the stone age by chance.
Chimpanzees in west Africa, macaques in Thailand and several species of tufted, strongly built capuchin monkeysliving in South America use stone tools to access food. Brendan Barrett at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Ancón, Panama, and his colleagues have now discovered that a species of non-tufted, slender-bodied capuchin monkey also uses stone tools.
The tufted and non-tufted capuchins are estimated to have split from each other about 6.2 million years ago, says Barrett. “That’s a similar divergence time between our lineage and the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and bonobos,” he says.
In other words, he says, the non-tufted capuchins are the fourth distinct type of non-human primate known to use stone tools on a regular basis. Read more on newscientist.com…
