Ethoarchaeology and Elementary Technology of Unhabituated Wild Chimpanzees at Assirik, Senegal, West Africa

Like other wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the savanna-dwelling apes of Assirik, Senegal, West Africa, make and use tools and so have an elementary technology. Unlike their more famous counterparts elsewhere in Africa, these apes are not observable at close range. Instead, they are amenable to etho-archaeological study, in which the indirect data of artifacts, remnants, and fecal contents add to the sparse behavioral data. These open-country hominoids show 15 behavioral patterns that appear to be material culture, in the minimal sense of socially learned behavioral diversity. These can be divided into subsistence (N = 7), social (5) and maintenance (3) activities shown at customary, habitual, or present levels of frequency. Some patterns, such as Termite Fish or Baobab Crack, leave behind assemblages of hundreds of artifacts or remnants in predictable contexts at enduring worksites. Other patterns are rare and ephemeral and are known only from anecdotal data. Almost all artifacts and remnants are non-lithic, and so their perishability limits their discovery and analysis. Maximally productive use of such data depends on close collaboration between archaeology and primatolog