Max Planck Research Group for Comparative Cognitive Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Proc Biol Sci. 2012 Nov 7;279(1746):4362-7. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1543. Epub 2012 Aug 29.
Grooming handclasp (GHC) behaviour was originally advocated as the first evidence of social culture in chimpanzees owing to the finding that some populations engaged in the behaviour and others do not. To date, however, the validity of this claim and the extent to which this social behaviour varies between groups is unclear. Here, we measured (i) variation, (ii) durability and (iii) expansion of the GHC behaviour in four chimpanzee communities that do not systematically differ in their genetic backgrounds and live in similar ecological environments. Ninety chimpanzees were studied for a total of 1029 h; 1394 GHC bouts were observed between 2010 and 2012. Critically, GHC style (defined by points of bodily contact) could be systematically linked to the chimpanzee's group identity, showed temporal consistency both within and between groups, and could not be accounted for by the arm-length differential between partners. GHC has been part of the behavioural repertoire of the chimpanzees under study for more than 9 years (surpassing durability criterion) and spread across generations (surpassing expansion criterion). These results strongly indicate that chimpanzees' social behaviour is not only motivated by innate predispositions and individual inclinations, but may also be partly cultural in nature.
梳理握手（Grooming Handclasp，简称 GHC）行为最初被认为是黑猩猩社会文化的第一个证据，因为发现一些黑猩猩群体有这种行为，而另一些群体则没有。然而，迄今为止，这种说法的有效性以及这种社会行为在群体之间的变化程度尚不清楚。在这里，我们测量了四个黑猩猩群体中的 GHC 行为的（i）变异，（ii）耐久性和（iii）扩展，这些群体在遗传背景上没有系统差异，生活在相似的生态环境中。我们总共对 90 只黑猩猩进行了研究，总计观察了 1029 小时；在 2010 年至 2012 年间观察到了 1394 次 GHC 行为。至关重要的是，GHC 风格（通过身体接触点定义）可以与黑猩猩的群体身份系统地联系起来，在群体内部和群体之间都表现出时间上的一致性，并且不能用伙伴之间的臂长差异来解释。GHC 是研究中的黑猩猩行为组合的一部分，已经存在了 9 年以上（超过耐久性标准），并在代际之间传播（超过扩展标准）。这些结果强烈表明，黑猩猩的社会行为不仅受到先天倾向和个体倾向的驱动，而且可能在某种程度上具有文化性质。
