Chimps using tools: Archaeology’s most fascinating discovery of
2007 A team of researchers led by Dr. Julio Mercader of the
University of Calgary in Alberta undertook excavations in the
West African nation, Côte d’Ivoire. They encountered a series of
hammer stones, some of them dating back 4,300 years, that are
thought to have been used by chimps to crack open nuts. Starch
residue from several nuts known to be staples in the chimpanzee
diet, but not the human diet, suggests that chimps, rather than
humans, manufactured these tools. Dr. Mercader was the first to
coin the term “chimpanzee archaeology.” His discoveries have
resulted in the opening of a new research niche within
archeology bearing the same name. Discoveries like these have
prompted humans to add the qualifier “complex” in front of the
word “tool.” It is an elegant, yet necessary, way to acknowledge
that non-human beings (in this case, chimps are also capable of
manufacturing tools, but that until further notice, it is only
us humans who use, say,