Selection and transport of materials for tools is ubiquitous throughout our species’ evolutionary history. Yet our understanding of early human material culture is heavily skewed toward lithic technology. This poses challenges when reconstructing our technical origins, as organic raw materials, especially plants, likely played a significant role despite their absence from the record until 300 kya. Studies of plant-tool use by living apes can serve as a proxy to reconstruct such aspects of human behavior. Employing archaeological methods, we investigated raw material procurement for termite-fishing tools by three chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) populations in Tanzania: Gombe, Issa, and Mahale. All communities exploited plant sources from the immediate vicinity of termite mounds, as well as farther away, and reused them. However, at Issa, more parts were sourced per plant, with the number of removals decreasing as distance from the mound increased. These disparities are likely caused by environmental differences. Issa apes might try to minimize transport costs in what is a comparably more open and drier habitat with fewer suitable sources available near mounds. Despite similar raw material types being available, Issa and Mahale chimpanzees exclusively used bark for tool manufacture, while at Gombe, various materials were employed; these differences may reflect cultural variants. Our study highlights how environmental and cultural factors shape chimpanzee technology and identifies similarities to raw material selection processes inferred for Oldowan tool users. The archaeology of the perishable, even if at its infancy, is providing a new framework for reconstructing archaeologically invisible aspects of early human behavior and our own technological origins.

中文翻译：

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易腐烂的考古学：黑猩猩白蚁捕捞的生态约束和文化变异

工具材料的选择和运输在我们物种的进化历史中无处不在。然而，我们对早期人类物质文化的理解严重偏向于石器技术。这在重建我们的技术起源时带来了挑战，因为有机原材料，尤其是植物，可能发挥了重要作用，尽管它们在 300 kya 之前没有记录。对活类人猿使用植物工具的研究可以作为重建人类行为的这些方面的代理。我们运用考古学的方法，调查了三只黑猩猩（Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) 坦桑尼亚的人口：Gombe、Issa 和 Mahale。所有社区都利用白蚁丘附近和更远的植物来源，并重新利用它们。然而，在伊萨，每株植物获得了更多的部分，随着与土墩距离的增加，移除的数量减少。这些差异很可能是由环境差异造成的。伊萨猿可能会尝试将运输成本降至相对更开放和干燥的栖息地，而靠近土丘的合适来源较少。尽管可以获得类似的原材料类型，但伊萨黑猩猩和马哈勒黑猩猩只使用树皮制造工具，而在贡贝，则使用各种材料；这些差异可能反映了文化差异。我们的研究强调了环境和文化因素如何塑造黑猩猩技术，并确定了与为 Oldowan 工具用户推断的原材料选择过程的相似之处。易腐烂的考古学，即使还处于起步阶段，也为重建早期人类行为和我们自己的技术起源的考古学上不可见的方面提供了一个新的框架。