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[QUOTE]Originally posted by DD'eDeN: [QB] Generations of macaques used 'tools' to open their oysters and nuts 10.6.16 A new study looks into the history of stone tools used by wild macaques in coastal Thailand: they have been using them for decades, possibly 1000s of years, to crack open shellfish & nuts. This is the first report into the archaeological evidence of tool use by OWMs (Michael Haslam cs 2016 JHE). It is just the 1st step in finding out how their behaviour compares with that of early humans living in similar environments. From a distance in boats off the coast, researchers spent hundreds of hours watching how groups of macaques in the marine national park on Piak Nam Yai Island selected stones as tools to crush marine snails, nuts & crabs. While the tide was out, the macaques broke open oysters attached to large boulders. They dislodged the top half of the shell, using their crushing tool, and then scooped out the meat with their fingers from the remaining part still attached to the rock. The researchers also found that once a macaque had a good stone fit for the job, they would keep it to crack open other shells or nuts before dropping it. Once the job was done, the macaques often discarded their tools around the same boulders, where they had enjoyed their meal. When the macaques had left the shore, the research team went on land to closely examine the tools for marks, e.g. - pitting on the flat side, - crushing & fracture marks on the narrow ends of the stones. They also excavated the area beneath a prominent boulder for evidence of discarded stone tools used by previous generations of macaques. Having identified the tell-tale marks of food processing, the researchers spotted 10 tools in the oldest archaeological layer, at 65 cm below the surface. They were limited in how far down they could dig, given the high tides that inundated the boulder twice a day. They indirectly dated the excavated tools as between 10 & 50 years old (radio-C dates for oyster shell debris in the same undisturbed archaeological layer). Haslam: '... primates with much smaller brains than humans have innovative ways of exploiting the food sources available to them. Macaques in the forests on the island come down to the shore, when the tide is out, to forage, and use stones as tools, to break open shells & hard nut-casings. What we don't have at the moment is a body of archaeological evidence to compare the evolutionary behaviour of other primates with our own. Uncovering the history of the macaques' foraging behaviour is a first step. As we build up a fuller picture of their evolutionary history, we will start to identify the similarities & differences in human behaviour & that of other primates.' The Primate Archaeology Project runs archaeology work at various sites around the world. For the macaques, Primarch is working in cooperation with a programme on macaque tool use in Thailand (Michael Gumert & Suchinda Malaivijitnond). In previous research led by Haslam, a team also observed the tool-carrying distances of the macaques on Piak Nam Yai Island: the monkeys typically moved their tools 1 m or less from where they picked them up, although the longest distance that a macaque carried a tool was 87.6 m. On average, they ate 9 oysters at a time, moving short distances with the same tool, but in 1 case, they observed a hungry macaque eat 63 oysters in a row, using the same stone tool to cleave the shells open. Michael Haslam cs 2016 Archaeological excavation of wild macaque stone tools JHE doi 10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.05.002 [/QB][/QUOTE]
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