C. Intellect

From an intellectual point of view, Goodall (1976:47) has shown that Chimpanzees are tool users; using rocks as hammers to open palm nut kernels; sticks to extract honey from bees' nests; and using grass stems to fish for termites. Studies at Yerkes with the chimpanzee Sultan, have demonstrated that species' problem solving abilities, insight, and learning.

D. Communication.

Francine Patterson (1978) has trained Koko, a female Lowland Gorilla, to use American Sign Language. With the language, Koko expresses her emotions, refers to past, present, and future events, defines objects, and provides a name for her pet kitten (Vessels:1985). On the accidental death of her kitten, Koko cried, and later requested another kitten as a replacement (Garrett: 1985). These demonstrations indicate that in the area of communication, we are very close indeed.

E. Culture.

Fedigan goes on to discuss the use of the terms 'proto-culture', 'pre-culture', and 'subculture' in reference to studies on Japanese monkeys as an example of transmission of behaviors between individuals of a group. Although it is still considered a controversial topic, I feel that there is, in fact, culture within the non-human primate societies. Behaviors are passed between individuals; chimpanzees learn termite fishing, Macaques learn food washing and separation, and monkeys and apes learn mothering behaviors. What differs is the amount and types of things passed from one generation to the next. Homo sapiens passes, besides behaviors, information. Information concerning values, histories, cosmologies etcetera.

3. Answering The Questions.

In Homo sapiens, the human being, the range of behavioral responses is widely varied, most likely because of our evolutionary path we faced, the amount of information passed between generations, and the intellectual gyrations and judgments using that information to view and rationalize our behaviors.

A. Monkeys and Man

B. Great Apes and Man.

To return now to the original questions, 'Where did it happen?' 'What happened?' and 'When did it happen?', I feel that the fork in the evolutionary path which lead to man should be placed prior to the branch which lead to the great apes, for the great apes have similar intellectual abilities, and yet their physical structure has been modified towards more specificity. For example, the length of the canines indicate that the dental structure has moved from the generalized pattern to a specialized pattern selected for, either defense or processing different food types. This indicates to me that the animal that became man did not face the same environmental pressures as his concurrent relatives. It continued in a generalized pattern on the model of the ape and man ancestor, refining the qualities of consciousness rather than modifying body shape.

The key point is that the ancestor to man and ape was an intellectual being of sorts prior to being physically recognized as Homo.

My argument is this: Should the great apes have an innate ability for such behaviors as cultural transmission, and especially communication, if these behaviors were not selected for prior to the separation of lineages? I think not. What happened in the case of the apes, is that they had no need to develop these qualities further. Their environment provided stable conditions not requiring extensive use of mental abilities as a method of immediate survival.

I believe that the above abilities are characteristics acquired sometime after the break of apes and man from the monkeys, for we see that the behavioral basis for these characteristics are evident to degrees in all of present primate species, but particularly well developed in apes and man.

C. The Natural Selection of Communication.

As in the case of canine development, once selected, and obviously advantageous, the rapidity of human development (a state of being) would have been phenomenal. That human development did not lead directly to implementation of new and elaborate technologies immediately, is not really an issue. As other primates have existed for ages in their niches, the human did also. There is no need to use technology if the environment does not require technology. Hence we cannot rely on the evidence of tools to indicate that the animal had become human. But when demanded the intellect of the animal could and would produce a tool, and eventually a complex technology.

i). Questions Concerning Communication.

Why was communication behavior so important that those who exhibited those propensities would isolate themselves to become a separate species?

Many would suggest the need for communication through hunting, brought about by the dwindling of forests and decreasing fruit and vegetable matter available for consumption. This, I find, is an inadequate solution, since baboons, for ever how long they have been on the savanna, have managed to eke out a living, including foraging and hunting. The !kung still do the same. Evidence from Goodall (1976) indicates that Chimpanzees also hunt, and that there appears to be cooperation in hunting, and yet the Chimpanzees have not required the need for an elaborate method of communication to accomplish these feats.

What we are searching for is the need for communication for the animal which would become man, and its reason for being. If other animals could survive without communication, then food, or acquisition of food, could not be the prime factor in creating an adaptive advantage.

Let us review the problem. The ancestor of ape and man had the mental potential to communicate since both ape and man have this ability in the present. The difference is that the ape is structurally different in the construction of the pharynx, and I therefore argue that both ape and man modified their vocal structures in differing directions after their separations from the common stock, and communication in man somehow was enhanced to its current state.

Let us look deeper into communication for a possible answer. What is the basis of communication? Communication is the transfer of ideas or messages from one being to another. Primates do not have a monopoly on non-verbal communication, all animals use some form, whether chemically in pheromones, calls, or body language. The uniqueness of primate communication, especially in the great apes, and man, is the message transmitted.

The messages, besides being mating calls, threats, or fear reactions, convey emotional content from the point of view of feelings between individuals (Goodal, 1971:235-239). This implies that an individual is aware of another individual and can realize that the awareness is reciprocal, and to some extent, empathetic. This type of awareness requires a strong identification of self, and the realization that the individual can have some effect on another. This awareness is evident in the alliance and coalition behaviors of many primates, and therefore that level of consciousness had to be in place prior to the split of man and ape from their ancestor. If so, what pressure caused that type of awareness?

ii). The Growth of Consciousness.

What moving to the ground has done is generate a feeling of insecurity because of a lack of innate abilities to handle the new environment, for example acentric behavior in patas monkeys (Morgan, 1973:195, Fedigan, 1982:242).

This insecurity, or fear, puts the individual in a state of consciousness which demands the awareness of self for survival. One must realize that one does exist, and that one's actions (behaviors) have a definite bearing on whether or not on survives from one instant to the next.

As I have defined consciousness earlier, I see it as the state of being aware of one's self in a manner that one understands that the environment can be influenced for the one's benefit. In this specific case the environment includes predators as a part of the environment which can be influenced.

The insecurity of a new environment, of not having innate and appropriate behaviors to deal with the encounters, lead to the creation of a self-consciousness essential for survival.

For the semi-arboreal moving to a terrestrial environment, the effects of food utilization, and more immediate, predation would have been almost disastrous. Almost, except that as in the example of canine development, the mental behavior of self awareness allowed the survival of an animal whose mental abilities would have been quickly refined. This I believe, is a quality of the ancestor of man and ape, a common quality carried down to the present species. It lead to the elaborate and diversified social behaviors of the semi- terrestrial and terrestrial primate that are reported today, and it implies that the greater apes did spend some period of their development in an unfamiliar environment.

It was this quality which was refined further through communication and culture in the animal that became man. According to Johanson (1982: 361-363), the period of dwindling forests began during the Miocene, approximately fifteen million years ago. With them, the dryopithecids also disappeared about eight or nine million years ago, 'perhaps already beginning to show the long-term dangers of an extreme 'K' reproductive strategy when faced with a less-than-ideal environment.' (1982: 363).

I suggest that the animal that became ape and man behaved differently than those who perished. He became self conscious, and aware, probably between eight and seven million years ago. To support this I can only offer an article I read in a dentists office (title and date 1984? forgotten) on immunological comparisons of great apes and man where an estimated branch off period for man and gorillas was set at seven million years ago. Since chimpanzees and gorillas have an ability to communicate through sign language, I feel this common trait with man was developed in this period, prior to the split of lineages.

4. Conclusion.

Through 7 to 3 million years ago, with the concept of self established, the concept of objects other than self had 4 million years to develop. At this stage, Homo habilis was making stone tools; a technology had started, cultural transmission of behaviors was in progress. Whether or not he was our ancestor is not the point I want to make, but that somewhere in the 4 million year period, the need to transmit more than procedural behaviors such as stone tool making did arise. The animal(s) who increasingly gestured, or modified call and emotive behaviors to identify objects other than self would from that point on be primarily culturally selected rather than naturally selected. For when a mind realizes self through insecurity, it attempts to regain the security of the mother infant bond (Fedigan, 1982:126) by modifying these behaviors again into the behaviors of adult dyadic relationships.

These choices of relationship, I believe were first initiated through the mother infant bonds since mothering involves an awareness for an-other being (child). They would have been further refined via matrilineages, individual movement between groups , and group fissioning. Since female choice has been demonstrated and observed in monkeys and apes by several researchers (Fedigan 1982: 282-285), and these choices seem to be made for protective, care-taking, non aggressive, and idiosyncratic reasons, I find no problem in an aware female choosing males of similar disposition for their partners, thus allowing for the transmission of improved culture over time.

No longer would it be enough to have physical companionship, alliance or coalition. What the animal would want, would be a reassurance that the other felt as it did. It would choose idiosyncratically. It would need to send a message, and receive a reply; it would need to talk. It would select from the group, those animals who were best at sending messages, and discriminate against those that did not. It would behaviorally isolate itself relatively rapidly, becoming horizontally separate from the others. It and its kind would become a species by definition.

(c) 1986, 1999. Lark Ritchie. All Rights Reserved. Contact me at this address..