Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagTool use by animals

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遊ぶチンパンジーの子供

Why Humans Can’t “Share the Spotlight” With Tool-Using Animals

As the Ivy League war on human exceptionalism motors on, researchers’ thinking sometimes shorts out — and they don’t even notice
Their discussion of animal behavior depends wholly on the uniquely human ability to abstract. That ability also radically changes how humans use tools. Read More ›
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Screaming portrait of capuchin wild monkey

Study: Monkeys, Not Humans, Likely Made Ancient Brazilian Tools

The stone objects, dated from 50,000 years ago, look like the ones made by capuchin monkeys today

There’s a danger in looking too hard for evidence of our ancient ancestors. Sometimes we could be seeing things that aren’t there. One group of stone tools from 50,000 years ago could, it is now suggested, have been made by monkeys: Excavations at Pedra Furada, a group of 800 archaeological sites in the state of Piauí, Brazil, have turned up stone shards believed to be examples of simple stone tools. Made from quartzite and quartz cobbles, the oldest ones appear to be up to 50,000 years old, which would put them among the earliest evidence of human habitation in the Western Hemisphere. However, the tools also bear a striking resemblance to the stone tools currently made by the capuchin monkeys Read More ›