All of us were long curious about how similar some behaviour of apes were to humans. They are affectionate, capable of imitating
and awake our most deep instincts and empathy. On the other hand a good deal of research focused on which human behaviours are rooted in other primate lines and which are unique to the human lineage.
Though similarities were the focus of early research, more recent work has been done on divergences: “Mind the gap”, said , anthropologist Carel van Schaik in a keynote talk last year. Behaviours like advanced planning social organization, culture and teaching through language should be
considered unique to humans.
Several sorts of behaviours were analysed in order to assess their uniqueness to humans:
1. Waiting for
gratification Most animals lack this capacity though some animals are able to store food for long periods, using it only when it’s scarce in nature. Experiments with different species of apes showed some capacity of delaying gratification showing that this ability was already present in the common ancestor of humans and apes and that this should be considered a pre-requisite for the planning necessary for most human activities today.
2. Altruism
Helping others without expecting a reward or gratification seems to be excluded from non human primates and has been considered that this would require higher cognition and the ability to feel and understand the others’ mental states. Yet some primates, the marmosets showed also this type of altruistic behaviour in a set of experiments. It was then proposed that this could be the result that both humans and marmosets are cooperative breeders, that means their offspring is taken care of not only by parents, but also by other members of the community. Though conclusions should be handled with care, it seems that generosity and complex cognitive skills are to be considered independent adaptations, which humans developed far beyond other primates
3. Innovation
Cultural innovation seems to be the point where divergence clings on. This appears to be the result that non human primates are so poor imitators as compared to humans. Humans not only imitate behaviours and skills but are able to retain them over generations and transform them, adapting to changing needs. On the other hand, chimpanzees’ social learning capacities have shown to be more powerful than previously thought.
Indeed, for some, the evolutionary gap between humans and other primates might not be insurmountable. The combination of traits responsible for the behaviour divergence between humans and other primates raises the question whether this could happen again in another species, given the appropriate circumstances.