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Today's Boston Phoenix has an article about a Harvard biological anthropologist (aka chimp-studying guy) who reports that, in the last two or three years, the chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale Forest have made what he says is a wholly unprecedented technological advancement: they have learned to bludgeon one another with sticks.
"This is the first time any animal other than humans has been seen to pick up clubs as weapons and use them against others of their own species," explains Richard Wrangham, a 54-year-old professor of biological anthropology and world-renowned authority on chimpanzees. "This is the first repeated hitting. This is picking up a stick and wham-wham-wham-wham!"
In 1999, a male chimp named Imoso was seen using a stick to beat a female chimp named Outamba. Since then, Wrangham and his researchers have observed several incidents of weapons use by chimps. The pound-and-pound-on-your-neighbor-with-a-stick meme is spreading. If all this is true—and when it comes to biological anthropology I can only assume the Phoenix is an unimpeachable source—it's a technological leap worthy of black monoliths and Also Sprach Zarathustra.
The article (which contains a helpful photo of "a stick") continues with some yabber jabber about biological predispositions to violence and tries incoherently to tie it all in to September 11th and war with Iraq, but I think the real message here is grim, and the danger is all too clear:
The Chimps have the Stick. I repeat, the Chimpanzees have The Stick.
"This is the first time any animal other than humans has been seen to pick up clubs as weapons and use them against others of their own species," explains Richard Wrangham, a 54-year-old professor of biological anthropology and world-renowned authority on chimpanzees. "This is the first repeated hitting. This is picking up a stick and wham-wham-wham-wham!"
In 1999, a male chimp named Imoso was seen using a stick to beat a female chimp named Outamba. Since then, Wrangham and his researchers have observed several incidents of weapons use by chimps. The pound-and-pound-on-your-neighbor-with-a-stick meme is spreading. If all this is true—and when it comes to biological anthropology I can only assume the Phoenix is an unimpeachable source—it's a technological leap worthy of black monoliths and Also Sprach Zarathustra.
The article (which contains a helpful photo of "a stick") continues with some yabber jabber about biological predispositions to violence and tries incoherently to tie it all in to September 11th and war with Iraq, but I think the real message here is grim, and the danger is all too clear:
The Chimps have the Stick. I repeat, the Chimpanzees have The Stick.
