Iulia Bădescu, an associate professor of anthropology at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), has revealed groundbreaking insights into the tool-making abilities of young chimpanzees. To answer this question, she performed her research at the Ngogo field site within Kibale National Park, Uganda. Over a period totaling 15 months between 2013 and 2014, and again in 2018, she analyzed the creativity and exploratory behavior of 36 young chimps. That finding indicates that young chimpanzees are capable of spontaneous tool invention. This is why they particularly stand out when it comes to changing the designs adults use.
From Bădescu’s research, we learned that juvenile chimpanzees were able to demonstrate 67 different uses of objects. Shockingly, 94% of these were new adaptations and applications in new contexts! This study turns those assumptions on their head when it comes to childhood innovation. It demonstrates that younger primates might play a critical role in technological evolution.
Among the notable innovations identified were three distinct behaviors: playing with a “doll” fashioned from a tree stump, utilizing moss to absorb and drink water, and clipping leaves to signal their desire to be carried. These actions highlight the creative capacity of younger chimpanzees when provided the opportunity to experiment with their surroundings.
To better understand personal variations in object usage, Bădescu developed a metric, which he dubbed an “exploration index.” This index takes into account how often, variedly, and unusually an individual manipulates objects. A total of nine individual chimpanzee children scored significantly above this index, suggesting an inclination for innovative behavior. Finsinger’s research found that females and kids of mothers with lots of kids scored better. These findings indicate that social support and gender can impact exploratory behavior and should be considered.
Bădescu emphasized the significance of these findings, stating, “We don’t often think of kids as being the innovators of technology, but they can indeed be important.” She further observed that the consequences do not stop with the chimpanzee population. “This paper is about evolution of culture in humans, using chimps as a model of comparison, and the take-home message is that children could be more important figures in cultural evolution than previously thought.”
The results underscore the need and benefit of a kind, warm, supportive social environment to foster object play. This environment may be crucial to fostering innovation in juvenile chimps. The researchers stated, “A permissive social environment for object play may be key to the developmental pathways of innovation, providing a generative context for behavioral variation on which social learning and selection can act.”