Abstract:

Humans and other-than-human-animals share spaces, food, and lives. However, much research neglects interspecific learning/social facilitation and what this might mean for the emergence/creation of location- and group-specific behavior, and possibly culture. In short, most studies avoid the possibility of co-created cultural evolutionary dynamics between species. Here we review macaque “cultural behavior” in the light of its origins and the possibilities of relevance to cultural evolutionary approaches. Most macaque species are synanthropes adjusting to human habitats and resources, co-creating ecological niches wherein co-constructed behaviors emerge and location-specific cultures arise. Socially learned macaque behaviors can develop without human presence, or in a human-macaque interface with interspecific facilitation or in a human-macaque interface directly as a human-macaque co-constructed behavior due to interspecific interactions. Human-macaque interactions can create behavior that is transmitted horizontally and vertically through the two groups leading to a possible distinctive local culture over time. A cultural dynamic that may be evolutionarily relevant. Understanding the dynamics of emergence and maintenance of existing behaviors requires recognizing that co-creating and co-shaping of lifeworlds, and the possibilities of a concomitant cultural evolutionary dynamic, may be a constructive approach in research at the human-macaque interface.

Speaker's social media:

@MaleneFHansen @Anthrofuentes