History

Arturo Perez
11/05/2013
Anthropology
Craig Stanford wrote an article titled “Got Culture” and the issues addressed in this article are that our closest relatives who are the Chimpanzees share a culture just as us humans do. But many people in the world do not believe in such theories they believe that culture is specific to humans only and that there is no way that a Chimp can hold such “symbolic relationships” as us humans do everyday (Stanford, 2002.)
Throughout the article Stanford points out many claims that oppose and support his theory. For instance he states that there has been lots of research on the African Chimps and there was no culture within these animals at all, and that various chimps separated by geographic location and the groups were very different in several ways. These ways varied in the way they got their food, hunting and mating. (Stanford, 2002) He pointed out that even though there were many similarities in the tools they used and how they used them they were still very different as well based on their specific location.
Stanford did include contrary beliefs in his writings such as Primatologist William McGrew who examined the way Chimpanzees and humans used tools. He also pointed out that there could be many different explanations as to the many difference among Chimps and he said they were because of genetics, ecological, and the different habitats. There was also Psychologist Andrew Whiten who conducted the first survey of the cultural differences between the chimps and concluded that there were 39 behaviors that could not be explained. (Stanford, 2002)
In this article Stanford was really good at providing a view of both sides to show his research and the research of others such as the work of Whiten and McGrew. Stanford also made suggestions that they include previously shunned species be included in the definition of culture to have it make more sense. Stanford also included other animal species to help the reader understand the explanations and to make them have a better understanding of his definition of what culture is.
After reading this article it is even more evident to me just how different each group of chimps actually are, even if they live near each other’s geographic location. I understand where he comes from that Chimps can share commonalities such as culture but I do not agree that all chimps share a whole culture. Just as humans are similar in several ways even when we do not live near one another we are also very different. Someone who lives in England and someone who lives in the US may use a hammer for the same reason just like the chimps may use a rock for the same reason.
Reference:
Stanford, C. (2002). Got culture?. USC Media and Public Relations, Retrieved from http://use.edu/uscnews/stories/8056/html