To Suggest That We Can Learn Anything About the Simian Nature from a Study of Man is Sheer Nonsense

Jesse Walker | January 14, 2008

ScienceDaily summarizes a paper from PNAS:

Socially-learned cultural behaviour thought to be unique to humans is also found among chimpanzees colonies, scientists at the University of Liverpool have found.

Historically, scientists believed that behavioural differences between colonies of chimpanzees were due to variations in genetics. A team at Liverpool, however, has now discovered that variations in behaviour are down to chimpanzees migrating to other colonies, proving that they build their 'cultures' in a similar way to humans.

The paper itself is available only to PNAS subscribers, but the abstract is open to all.