Session 18

Episode 5(3) - Where and how we started our path to now

Thursday, October 1, 2015 - 5:30 PM

Seminar Room B309, Engineering Block B

Garden of Eden

Our ancestors were the unfortunate apes who were stranded on the African savanna when climate change destroyed the primeval forests of their Garden of Eden like our capuchin monkey cousins were more recently.

Like hominins, it seems that some capuchins are becoming more bipedal when they need to cross treeless scrub lands or to carry heavy objects.

Capuchins out for a walk

Some capuchin groups have even developed food processing industries!

Capuchin nut cracking inidustry

The video above provides food for thought and provokes some of the questions explored in this session.

This session reviews some of the comparative evidence showing how tool-using apes (and monkeys) can adapt with technological solutions when climatic change turns their forests into dry thorn forests and savannas and forces them to work for their livings.