Think About:

1
Think About

• What is culture?
• How do you know it when you see it?
• Is culture exclusive to humans?

2
What makes humans human?

• Implies manipulating nature
• Thought, experimentation, innovation

3
What makes humans human?

• Representing the world
• Higher purpose
• Not evolutionary

4
What makes humans human?

• Shows conceptions of place in the universe
• Beliefs passed on from one generation to next

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SoIs Culture a Human Thing?
6
Animal Culture

• Evidence of Culture Among Non-Humans

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Japanese Macaque a.k.a. Snow Monkeys
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Koshima, 1953

• Japanese researchers leave sweet potatoes on a
  beach for a troop of macaques
• The potatoes are covered with sand and the
  monkeys have to rub them to get the sand off
• One female, named Imo, begins to wash the potato
  in water

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• Soon others start washing potatoes
• After four years, 18 of adults and 78 of
  juveniles are washing potatoes
• Washing in salt water makes them tastier

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Innovation in 1956

• Imo discovers that dropping wheat grains in water
  will separate them from sand
• Others adopt the innovation

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Nagano, 1963

• Researchers feed wild macaques soybeans
• Some fall into a hot spring
• Female named Mukubili goes in the water after
  them
• She likes the warmth and stays

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Others follow suit

• Started with young
• Then mothers
• Then rest of troop
• Soon they were enjoying the hot tub throughout
  the winter

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Hot Tub Etiquette

• Grooming is welcome
• Dont stay too long
• No splashing!

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Innovation

• Young monkeys discover something they can do with
  snow
• SNOWBALLS!

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Snowball Fights?

• No
• Monkey youth throw them in hot spring
• Roll them as they melt

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Lessons

• Is this culture?
• Innovation
• Experimentation and discovery
• Adoption
• Other members of tribe
• Transmission
• Across generations

20
Other evidence

• Small birds pecking through bottle caps on cream
  in Britain
• Local dialects of bird song
• Tool making in chimps and crows
• Whales and dolphins, language and customs

21
What is culture?

• The sum total of knowledge, attitudes, and
  habitual behavior patterns shared and transmitted
  by members of a society.