Lydia Luncz

University of Oxford | OX · School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography

The origin of tool use is a central question in human evolutionary studies. Plio-Pleistocene core and flake technologies represent the earliest evidence of tool use in the human lineage. Some suggest this form of tool use is probably pre-dated by a phase of percussive tool use. However, there is currently no evidence for such a record. The archaeol...

The archaeological record offers insights into our evolutionary past by revealing ancient behaviour through stone and fossil remains. Percussive foraging is suggested to be particularly relevant for the emergence of tool-use in our lineage, yet early hominin percussive behaviours remain largely understudied compared to flaked technology. Stone tool...

The ability to select appropriate tool material enabled early hominins access to new resources and environments. The underlying mechanisms driving tool selection effectively remain unknown. Observations of extant primates have demonstrated strong selectivity for specific tools, offering analogous insight into technological decision-making. However,...

The archaeological record offers insights into our evolutionary past by revealing ancient behaviour through stone and fossil remains. Percussive foraging is suggested to be particularly relevant for the emergence of tool-use in our lineage, yet early hominin percussive behaviours remain largely understudied compared to flaked technology. Stone tool...

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human anima...

Stone tool use is a rare behavior across nonhuman primates. Here we report the first population of common long‐tailed macaques ( Macaca fascicularis fascicularis ) who customarily used stone tools to open rock oysters ( Saccostrea forskali ) on a small island along the Thai Gulf in Koh Ped (KPE), eastern Thailand. We observed this population severa...

Living nonhuman primates have long served as a referential framework for understanding various aspects of hominin biological and cultural evolution. Comparing the cognitive, social, and ecological contexts of nonhuman primate and hominin tool use has allowed researchers to identify key adaptations relevant to the evolution of hominin behavior. Alth...

Archaeological evidence informs our understanding of the evolution of hominin behaviour. Such evidence is traditionally used to reconstruct hominin activities and intentions. In the Plio-Pleistocene, the presence or absence of specific tools and variation in artefact density is often used to infer foraging strategies, cognitive traits and functiona...

The pathways through which primates acquire skills are a central focus of cultural evolution studies. The roles of social and genetic inheritance processes in skill acquisition are often confounded by environmental factors. Hybrid macaques from Koram Island (Thailand) provide an opportunity to examine the roles of inheritance and social learning to...

Intentionally produced sharp-edged stone flakes and flaked pieces are our primary evidence for the emergence of technology in our lineage. This evidence is used to decipher the earliest hominin behavior, cognition, and subsistence strategies. Here, we report on the largest lithic assemblage associated with a primate foraging behavior undertaken by...

The production of sharp-edged stone flakes is often viewed as a unique adaptation specific to the hominin lineage. The discovery of large stone cores and flakes dated to 3.3 Ma has shown that the earliest evidence of hominin stone flake production differs from the later Oldowan (dated to 2.6 Ma) record. Recent discoveries have shown that capuchin m...

When and how human ancestors first used tools remains unknown, despite intense research into the origins of technology. It has been hypothesized that the evolutionary roots of stone flake technology has its origin in percussive behavior. Before intentional stone flaking, hominins potentially engaged in various percussive behaviors resulting in acci...

Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists and conservationists working to protect endangered species, we call for reflection on how the culture concept may be applied in practice. Here, we discuss both the potential benefits and potential shortcomings of applying the animal culture concept, and...

Symbolic communication is not obvious in the natural communicative repertoires of our closest living relatives, the great apes. However, great apes do show symbolic competencies in laboratory studies. This includes the understanding and the use of human-provided abstract symbols. Given this evidence for the underlying ability, the apparent failure...

The ability to modify the environment through the transport of tools has been instrumental in shaping the evolutionary success of humans. Understanding the cause-and-effect relationships between hominin behavior and the environment ultimately requires understanding of how the archaeological record forms. Observations of living primates can shed lig...

The Early Stone Age record preserves a rich behavioural signature of hominin stone tool making and use. The role of percussive technology in the daily subsistence strategies of our earliest ancestors has seen renewed focus recently. Studies of modern primate tool use highlight the diverse range of behaviours potentially associated with percussive t...

Discussions of how animal culture can aid the conservation crisis are burgeoning. As scientists and conservationists working to protect endangered species, we call for reflection on how the culture concept may be applied in practice. Here, we discuss both the potential benefits and potential shortcomings of applying the animal culture concept and p...

The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest - edited by Christophe Boesch November 2019

The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest - edited by Christophe Boesch November 2019

Stone tools in the prehistoric record are the most abundant source of evidence for understanding early hominin technological and cultural variation. The field of primate archaeology is well placed to improve our scientific knowledge by using the tool behaviours of living primates as models to test hypotheses related to the adoption of tools by earl...

In recent decades, researchers have increasingly documented the impact of anthropogenic activities on wild animals, particularly in relation to changes in behaviour. However, whether human-induced behavioural changes in wildlife may be considered evidence of cultural evolution remains an open question. We explored whether behavioural responses to d...

Stone-hammering behaviour customarily occurs in Burmese long-tailed macaques, Macaca fascicularis aurea , and in some Burmese-common longtail hybrids, M. f. aurea × M. f. fascicularis ; however, it is not observed in common longtails. Facial pelage discriminates these subspecies, and hybrids express variable patterns. It was tested if stone hammeri...

Cultural differences between animal groups offer a means of tracing social relationships and cognition through time and across space. Where behaviours include tool use, we can observe the influence of available materials and role models on the development of tool-based activities. Here, we discuss the ways that we can study the social influence of...

Archaeological recovery of chimpanzee Panda oleosa nut cracking tools at the Panda 100 (P100) and Noulo sites in the Taï Forest, Côte d'Ivoire, showed that this behavior is over 4000 years old, making it the oldest known evidence of non-human tool use. In 2002, the first report on the lithic material from P100 was directly compared to early hominin...

The discovery of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) nut-cracking by wild long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) is significant for the study of non-human primate and hominin percussive behaviour. Up until now, only West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and modern human populations were known to use stone hammers to crack open this particul...

Cultural diversity among social groups has recently been documented in multiple animal species. Investigations of the origin and spread of diverse behaviour at group level in wild-ranging animals have added valuable information on social learning mechanisms under natural conditions. Behavioural diversity has been especially informative in the case...

Most of our knowledge of wild chimpanzee behaviour stems from fewer than 10 long-term field sites. This bias limits studies to a potentially unrepresentative set of communities known to show great behavioural diversity on small geographic scales. Here, we introduce a new genetic approach to bridge the gap between behavioural material evidence in un...

Anthropogenic disturbances have a detrimental impact on the natural world; the vast expansion of palm oil monocultures is one of the most significant agricultural influences. Primates worldwide consequently have been affected by the loss of their natural ecosystems. Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascilularis) in Southern Thailand have, however, lear...

Since its inception, archaeology has traditionally focused exclusively on humans and our direct ancestors. However, recent years have seen archaeological techniques applied to material evidence left behind by non-human animals. Here, we review advances made by the most prominent field investigating past non-human tool use: primate archaeology. This...

ELife digest Tools have helped us to become one of the most successful species on Earth. However, our use of tools for hunting and foraging has also caused many prey species to become endangered, or even extinct. In some cases, it has also led to evolutionary changes in prey species. For example, over-harvesting of shellfish in coastal areas has dr...

Stone tools used. Shellfish foraging stone tools collected on Koram and NomSao Islands, Thailand.

Oyster size. The size of rock oysters measured in width and length on Koram and NomSao Islands, Thailand.

Natural stone availability and weight. The number and weight of stones located in 20 × 20 cm plots on Koram and NomSao Islands, Thailand.

Snail size. The size (length) of three marine snails (N = 100 each) on Koram and NomSao Islands, Thailand.

Maturation stages. The size and maturation stages of the main prey species harvested by tool using macaques on Koram and NomSao Island, Thailand.

Snail availability. The number of snails located in point transects along the shore of Koram and NomSao Islands, Thailand.

Koram Island shellfish foraging. The number of prey items consumed during behavioral observation of daily shellfish foraging on Koram Island, Thailand.

Nut-cracking is shared by all non-human primate taxa that are known to habitually use percussive stone tools in the wild: robust capuchins (Sapajus spp.), western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus), and Burmese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea). Despite opportunistically processing nuts, Burmese long-tailed macaques predominantly us...

Wild capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) at Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil, regularly use stone tools to break open cashew nuts (Anacardium spp.). Here we examine 2 approaches used by the capuchins to position the kidney-shaped cashew nuts on an anvil before striking with a stone tool. Lateral positioning involves placing the nut on its...

Stone tool transport leaves long-lasting behavioural evidence in the landscape. However, it remains unknown how large-scale patterns of stone distribution emerge through undirected, short-term transport behaviours. One of the longest studied groups of stone-tool-using primates are the chimpanzees of the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast, West Africa...

Our understanding of the emergence of technology shapes how we view the origins of humanity. Sharp-edged stone flakes, struck from larger cores, are the primary evidence for the earliest stone technology. Here we show that wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) in Brazil deliberately break stones, unintentionally producing recurrent, c...

Animals foraging in their natural environments need to be proficient at recognizing and responding to changes in food targets that affect accessibility or pose a risk. Wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) use stone tools to access a variety of nut species, including otherwise inaccessible foods. This study tests whether wild capuchin...

Stone tools reveal worldwide innovations in human behaviour over the past three million years. However, the only archaeological report of pre-modern non-human animal tool use comes from three Western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) sites in Côte d’Ivoire, aged between 4.3 and 1.3 thousand years ago (kya). This anthropocentrism limits our compara...

More than 3 million years of excavated archaeological evidence (Harmand et al., 2015) underlies most major insights into the evolution of human behaviour. However, we have seen almost no use of archaeological excavation to similarly broaden our under- standing of behaviour in other animal lineages. The few published examples include recovery of a l...

Complex food-processing techniques by gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans have allowed comparisons of complex hierarchical cognition between great apes and humans. Here, we analyse preliminary observations of free-ranging long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) (n = 3) in Thailand processing Opuntia sp. cactus fruits. From our observations, we...

Investigations of the weight of granite hammerstones and its influenced by the distance to the closest inselberg (as the possible origin): The table presents the results of a linear model analyzing the effect of distance to the nearest inselberg on hammerstone weight of Panda nut cracking tools.

Data set used to investigate the distance-decay effect in wild chimpanzees: The hammerstones for Panda oleasa nut cracking were located in two study groups (North and South group) the Taï National Park in Côte d´Ivoire, West-Africa. Here we present their weight and the distance to the nearest potential source (inselberg).

Investigations of the weight of granite hammerstones and its influenced by the distance to the closest inselberg (as the possible origin): The table presents the results of a linear model analyzing the effect of distance to the nearest inselberg on hammerstone weight of Panda nut cracking tools.

Data set used to investigate the distance-decay effect in wild chimpanzees: The hammerstones for Panda oleasa nut cracking were located in two study groups (North and South group) the Taï National Park in Côte d´Ivoire, West-Africa. Here we present their weight and the distance to the nearest potential source (inselberg).

Recovering evidence of past human activities enables us to recreate behaviour where direct observations are missing. Here,we apply archaeological methods to further investigate cultural transmission processes in percussive tool use among neighbouring chimpanzee communities in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. Differences in the sel...

Members of four primate genera habitually use stone tools in the wild: Macaca in Thailand and Myanmar, Sapajus in Brazil, Homo worldwide and Pan in West Africa. Only one of these is indigenous to the New World – the capuchin monkey (Sapajus spp). Wild capuchin lithic tool use is widespread in the drier caatinga and cerrado environments of central a...

Capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) in several populations use stone tools to crack open encapsulated fruits. One of the resources they process with those tools are cashew nuts. During the maturation changes, the cashew nuts turns easier to crack, because when dry (late season) the husk became more fragile. We know that some wild chimpanzees (Pa...

Chimpanzees show cultural differences among populations across Africa but also between neighboring communities. The extent of these differences among neighbors, however, remains largely unknown. Comparing three neighboring chimpanzee community in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire, we found 27 putative cultural traits, including tool use, foragin...

The notion of animal culture has been well established mainly through research aiming at uncovering differences between populations. In chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus), cultural diversity has even been found in neighboring communities, where differences were observed despite frequent immigration of individuals. Female chimpanzees transfer at th...

The majority of evidence for cultural behavior in animals has come from comparisons between populations separated by large geographical distances that often inhabit different environments. The difficulty of excluding ecological and genetic variation as potential explanations for observed behaviors has led some researchers to challenge the idea of a...

Prion proteins (PrPs) are key players in fatal neurodegenerative disorders, yet their physiological functions remain unclear, as PrP knockout mice develop rather normally. We report a strong PrP loss-of-function phenotype in zebrafish embryos, characterized by the loss of embryonic cell adhesion and arrested gastrulation. Zebrafish and mouse PrP mR...

Translation of the Abstract into French by Houari Abdesselem (30 KB DOC)

Translation of the Abstract into Greek by Aimilia Sempou (27 KB DOC)

Accumulation of PrPs at Cell Contacts Correlates with Increased Levels of Tyrosine Phosphorylation in Drosophila S2 Cells (A–E) Accumulation of mouse DsRed-monomer-PrP (m PrP) and zebrafish EGFP- and DsRed-monomer-PrP-2 (zf PrP-2) at S2 cell contacts colocalizes with anti-phosphoSrc (α-pSrc, [A]) and anti-phosphotyrosine immunostaining (α-pTyr, [B–...

PrP-Mediated Cell Contacts Recruit Rat and Fish Reggie/Flotillin Proteins in Drosophila S2 Cells Accumulation of mouse EGFP-PrP (m PrP) and zebrafish EGFP-PrP-2 (zf PrP-2) at cell contacts colocalize with the recruitment of rat reggie-1 and -2 as well as zebrafish reggie-2a (zf reggie-2a) DsRed-monomer fusion proteins ([A–E], arrowheads). Scale bar...

Effect of PrP-1 Knockdown and mRNA Rescue on Zebrafish Development (83 KB DOC)

Translation of the Abstract into Portuguese by Alejandro Pinzón Olejua (29 KB DOC)

Adhesive Properties of PrPs in Drosophila S2 Cells Heterologous expression of PrPs induces cell aggregation, as shown for zebrafish PrP-2 (zf PrP-2) EGFP (A) and DsRed-monomer (B) fusion proteins. Accumulation at cell contacts of mouse PrP (m PrP, [B]), zf PrP-1 (C), and zf PrP-2 (D) DsRed-monomer fusion proteins are equally evident (arrowheads). S...

Intrinsic Motility of a Single Blastomere from a Control Embryo Time-lapse recording of the behavior of a single blastomere at 8 hpf. Embryos were dissociated as described in Materials and Methods, and mounted in Ringer's solution for visualization. The normal rotatory movement and exploratory behavior of a single cell with a leading edge can be ap...

Intrinsic Motility of a Single Blastomere from a PrP-1 Morphant Embryo Time-lapse recording of the behavior of a single blastomere at 8 hpf. Embryos were dissociated as described in Materials and Methods, and mounted in Ringer's solution for visualization. The rotatory movement, exploratory behavior, and rotation speed of the cell appear normal com...

Local Accumulation of PrP at a Cell Contact Three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of PrP accumulation along an entire cell contact. S2 cells expressing mouse EGFP-PrP were examined by confocal laser-scanning microscopy; 19 images were recorded to create a stack in the z-axis. The full projection of a Z-stack was converted into a video using the 3D...

Translation of the Abstract into Spanish by Edward Málaga-Trillo (30 KB DOC)

Translation of the Abstract into German by Aimilia Sempou (31 KB DOC)