Excerpt from "Kontaktkontraktet" ("The Contact Contract") by Eva Bodfäldt

http://www.k9training.ie/reading.html

(translation of this excellent swedish book is due 2009)

Articles in Swedish by Eva Bodfäldt

http://www.hundkonsulten.se/artiklar.asp

Article on how different training is required for different dogs

Great article commenting on how no one way of training is "right" or "wrong".

I have highlighted interesting stuff in red, with the blue text supporting/explaining info.

http://k9deb.com/positive.htm

Positive, Negative, Neutral

There's a lot of talk these days about training styles and methods. I suppose there has always been talk about such stuff among dog people. I don't subscribe to any particular method or style, but I do have something to say about such stuff. Oh, you knew that. :)

I believe that whatever methods you use should be fair, humane and effective. Those are, of course, super-charged words and everyone's going to have their own definition. If you're in doubt about whether your methods meet even your own definitions, ask around. There is no shortage of people willing to voice their opinions on the subject. Ask your vet, groomer, best friend, and your Uncle Charlie what they think of your training style. They'll tell you. In cyberspace you can visit newsgroups, and e-mail lists. You'll get good advice, bad advice and you've-got-to-be-kidding! advice. Take what works for you and throw out the rest, but only after careful consideration.

When I was first learning about canine behavior and training I was adamant about not using food treats. No dog of mine was going to be bribed into doing what I said! It took me a lot longer to really evaluate the use of food (reward) as a training tool because I wouldn't even listen to arguments in favor of the practice. Being stubborn won't help your training skills evolve, being open to other ideas will.

I use methods and tools that are comfortable for me and those that complement my individual style of training. I start all dogs on a flat leather or nylon collar. If we need to graduate to something that allows more control, I use a martingale type collar or a Gentle Leader halter. I never use metal slip, or "choke" collars because I think they carry a higher than average risk of causing tracheal damage, it's difficult to get Mr. and Ms. JQP to use them properly, and, most importantly, I'm not comfortable with using them. The reason I don't use training type collars, as a rule, is that the primary difference between them and a regular flat collar is that they are designed to be corrective. I don't even think about correcting until after I'm sure the dog has learned what I set out to teach him. When we get to the point that the dog knows exactly what "sit" means, and chooses not to, then I might use a collar correction, but I find a leash pop on a flat collar gets their attention just fine.

I once worked with a 9 month old, 100 lb. AmStaff mix that was the happiest dog I've ever seen. Geez, was he happy. He also had no manners at all. None. And, he had the attention span of a potato bug. He was a confident, exuberant and extroverted dog. When he was on a flat collar and I was on the other end of the leash there was no learning going on. There was, however, a good possibility that I was going to be dragged down the street on my butt. He was food motivated, but he'd never learned how to learn, so he thought the name of the game was "Knock Debbie over, grab the food, lick her face in thanks". As I said, no learning was going on. Well, not the kind I wanted. A martingale collar would not have prevented him from dragging me all around town and he would have likely broken his neck on a halter, so I decided to use a prong collar. The prong collar calmed him down enough for me to get his attention and to teach him how to learn something new. I'm aware that this worked because it made it uncomfortable (painful?) for him fly to the end of the leash every few seconds. It was, however, a humane, ethical and fair way to get this dog under control long enough to teach him proper leash etiquette and for him to get the hang of learning, in general. The prong collar was replaced with his flat collar after his first lesson. Once he learned how to learn he caught on to new things fast and with enthusiasm and ended up being a very well behaved dog.

If you adjust your attitude and stance to the dog, and keep your tool box of techniques full, you'll do fine.

I recently worked with an adolescent, male Rottie. When he was off leash he was very dog friendly. When he was on leash he was a bozo-head. He was not fearful of other dogs and he was not what I would call dog aggressive. For dogs that are fear aggressive or overtly aggressive towards other dogs I use positive reinforcement to create a conditioned response to seeing another dog. For this dog I didn't think that was necessary. I felt he was just being a bozo-head. A quick pop on the leash (flat collar) combined with a sharp "cut it out!" caused him to sit and look at me with that goofy expression teenaged dogs often have. The one that says "Geez, sorry, lost my head for a moment -- you over it now?"

I am a strong believer in teaching the proper behavior using positive methods rather than using force and compulsion to eliminate undesirable behavior, but I also believe in tailoring the training to the dog. This dog already knew that calm behavior when on leash and around other dogs was rewarding, but he still had moments when liked to puff up his chest. For this particular dog, in this particular circumstance, a combination of knowing what behavior predicted a reward was combined with learning what behavior predicted punishment. I could have used more or better rewards to get him to always offer the correct behavior, but I didn't see the necessity of that. It didn't take beating him with a 2x4, or jerking him around on a training collar to get the idea across that belligerence towards other dogs was not nice. The punishment he did receive (pop on a flat collar, verbal "cut that out") was sufficient to get the message across. Fair, humane, effective.

Not long after that I was working with a Lab mix that would have collapsed into a pile of trembling dog flesh if I had used even the softest of collar corrections. Withholding of reward was the only punishment I used with her and she came around very nicely. Even a stern "no" would have not been a fair or humane way to communicate with that dog at that time. She couldn't cope. She now copes with life, in general, much better than she did before, but it still takes little more than eye contact to correct her.

There might be "one true way" to spiritual enlightenment, but there is no such road that leads to one "right" way to train a dog.

©Deb McKean 2000

deb@k9deb.com

Tug-of-war as a reinforcer

Playing a game of tug as a reinforcer:

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727
(also myths pertaining to tug-of-war-games dispelled)

Excerpt from the intro:

Many dogs just love playing tug-of-war games. Of those who don't, most can be taught to play and end up loving it. If a dog loves doing something, what should a clicker trainer do with it? That's right, use it as a powerful reinforcer for other behaviors!

There are plenty of myths and old wives' tales surrounding tug games with dogs. Some people maintain that tug games encourage aggression, biting, and "dominance." While it is true that playing uncontrolled tug games can lead to behavior problems, the opposite is likely when you play controlled tug games.

Apart from being a powerful reinforcer, controlled tug games also exercise your dog's body and mind, teach some important foundation behaviors (self-control, holding, and letting go of objects in the mouth), and provide a fantastic outlet for the innate drives within your dog. When you learn how to teach and play tug games, you learn how to combine aspects of canine ethology and behaviorism in a practical and fun way!

General links

---

"Clicker training" for humans: TAGteach

"TAG is an acronym for Teaching with Acoustical Guidance. The focused, positive nature of this method yields immediate and stunning results that are clearly evident to teachers, students and parents."

http://www.tagteach.com/

---

Good general articles from positive reinforcement trainers:

http://www.shirleychong.com/index.html

http://www.k9deb.com/

http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/

---

Excerpt from article "Understanding Prey Drive"

Here is an interesting article on prey drive from:
http://flyballdogs.com/prey_drive.html

It is written geared towards those interested in training their dogs for flyball (for those of you who do not know what it is it is a kind of doggie relay race with dogs where they run to step on a platform which in turn releases a ball, which the dog is to catch and return with)

My personal interest in this article is the prey focus I have noticed in Noch and what I can do to controll and encourage it to go in the direction I want (fetch for example) as opposed to in direction I don't want (chasing hares, birds, kids etc.)

I have highlighted things I personally find interesting and that I might be able to use in my training. Red is extra interesting and blue is information backing/explaining the text in red.

-------------
Understanding Prey Drive
by Kathryn Hogg, kjh@flyballdogs.com

Discussions on dealing with aggressive dogs usually turns in the direction of how to deal with these situations when they occur but should be directed to prevention. People speak of correction and control in training when they should speak of refocusing and promoting correct behavior. As a long term Flyball team member, captain of a consistent top ten team, owner of several successful Flyball dogs, and mostly as a professional trainer who has a large amount of experience in solving aggression cases; I am going to put my two cents in.

First of all, let's clarify prey-drive versus chase drive. A prey driven dog will chase with a great deal of focus on the object it is pursuing and a definite goal of attaining access to its target. A chase driven dog will also chase but usually not with the same intensity or absolute drive to reach its target as the end goal. Many of you have done chase games with both types of dogs. The prey driven dog will drive as hard as it can until it reaches you and when it does you or your toy usually gets hit like a ton of bricks. The chase driven dog can be somewhat frustrating as it will chase you, but not with the drive or intense targeting behavior of the prey driven dog. This dog will often pursue the handler in chase games, but will run on by and not follow through to actually catch the handler. The chase driven dog usually does not exhibit the sudden increased burst of speed that a prey driven dog will when the handler increases their speed. Unfortunately, either tendency can lead to dog chasing and/or aggression (more so in the prey driven dog).

Secondly, let's apply this to Flyball training. All are born with different levels of pre-dispositions towards movement fixation. The funny thing here is that the dogs with strong prey-drive can potentially be some of the best Flyball dogs. Dogs very much learn what to fixate on. Unfortunately, many dogs learn to fixate on other dogs very early in their training. Practices such as letting the dog watch, or tying them to walls during practices, or running with a pack too much early in their career can be a major culprit. It is a known fact that a restrained dog watching movement go by will usually begin to fixate on the moving object. Everyone in Flyball knows this or why else would we build speed and drive through "restraint" recalls. Eventually through frustration, the restrained observing dog may become aggressive towards the moving dog. When a dog does not know the game and is watching, the most interesting thing is the dogs running by. So, those leaping, barking restrained dogs are not keen to play the game, but are keen to chase the dogs. Therefore, we must make these tendencies work for us and not against us. Do not let green dogs spend their time learning to develop a moving dog fixation; and certainly do not let already problematic dogs feed their fixation. In order to do this you may loose ten pounds, but the bottom line is the handler needs to get physical. My basic rule with a new dog or an already problematic dog is he is always playing chase games with me when he is around moving dogs. If a pre-existing severe focus problem exists then we begin around one non-moving dog and gradually build up. The idea is to develop a mind-set in the dog that the movement going on around him is insignificant and never involves him, and that you are the only interesting target . This takes a great deal of effort on the owners part as it is physical, and hard work to run around focusing your dog on your movement only(Tug games are excellent for this). It is certainly much easier to establish in a new puppy with no pre-conceived ideas. It can be a bigger project when you are trying to solve a pre-existing problem, but it is do-able. I am not saying that you would not use correction at all, but it is much more reliable to have a dog with this altered owner driven mind set than to rely on a negative consequence to make the dog restrain himself. I am also concerned over comments that the dog prey drives to get the ball and brings it due to the control you have on him. What all the top teams know is that the retrieve of the ball is only an activity en route to the drive to pursue and catch the handler. If the chase or prey drive is harnessed toward the handler; the other movement around is of little interest to the dog. One last note on this issue; I do not use the rest of my pack to exercise a new puppy. I go out one-on-one and play all those fun doggy games with him. He will be with the pack or other dogs enough to be properly socialized, but the majority of play time is with me. As I stated at the beginning, dogs learn what is fun to focus on; make sure that it is you. By, the way; for those of you worrying about having enough time to treat a new dog as an individual, I recently raised #12 of a pack of 12.

A final word: There are many roads to the same destination, I have just outlined one of them. These ideas are meant for a dog who has chase or prey driven problems; not for dogs with generalized offensive or defensive dog aggression problems which would also present other factors to be dealt with. I hope this helps some of you, or at least gives you some food for thought.

Why clicker train? (for the skeptics)

This is a great article by a brilliant clicker trainer called Melissa Alexander. It doesn't go through what clicker training is, but it may well wet your appetite for more if you're skeptical about clicker training.

Source:
Clicker Solutions Training Articles
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/skeptics.htm

For the Skeptics

As far as I know -- I admit I don't know a lot -- the studies you want haven't been done. There have been studies comparing reinforcement, punishment, and a combination of the two, but the studies didn't break reinforcement and punishment into positive and negative. (No, I don't have cites for those.)

I think however, the question is flawed. The definitions of R+, R-, P+, and P- are based on results. They say behavior increased or decreased. They don't say "a little bit," "a lot," "permanently," or "until something better comes along." All five parts of OC (including extinction) *work* by definition. Within reinforcement and punishment, every application -- positive and negative -- falls on a continuum from mild to severe, depending on the situation. Neither positive nor negative is innately "stronger" than the other.

So what you're asking about is reliability. Reliability is a number, pure and simple. One type of punishment or one type of reinforcement is not, by definition, more reliable than another. Reliability comes from application, from repetition, from a good solid training plan, and from a dedicated trainer.

The Baileys did not publish, as far as I know. However, in the nearly 50 years (15,000+ animals in nearly 150 species) that Animal Behavior Enterprises operated, the Brelands (and later the Baileys), who were scientists first, kept exhaustive records on each animal.

Though they were leaders in the push for humane treatment of animals, they were not guided by moral choices. They chose these methods because they gave them the results they needed in a timely manner. They chose them because they worked.

Many of those animals were for those "automated" exhibits they used to have at fairs -- "play tic tac toe against the chicken," for example. They also trained some pretty elaborate all-animal stage shows. However, not all of their work was commercial. Much of it was for the government. Beginning with the "pigeon-bombing project" of WWII through most of the Cold War, they had lots of interesting training challenges.

* They trained pigeons to go out ahead of troops in the jungle to search for ambushes.
.
* They trained ravens to fly, guided by a laser, into enemy territory at night, and once at the correct building to take a picture using a tiny camera around their neck and then return.
.
* They trained wild-caught, adult dolphins to do open-water work. Some of the tasks required the animals to be out for eight or more hours at a time -- and realize, the boats weren't with them. The boats just waited for the dolpins to do their task and return. Interestingly, their dolphins had faster return times than swimming out times. (Reinforcement is a powerful thing!) They never lost a dolphin. Once a storm forced them to abandon their dolphins for 36 hours. When they returned, the dolphins were still there, doing the default behavior they reliability!
.
* They trained dogs to detect mines and trip-wires and, more importantly, to prevent soldiers from tripping them.
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* They trained house cats to "spy" on the enemy. Imagine being able to pop up suddenly in front of a cat and shoot a shotgun -- or being able to have a snarling lunging dog jump right in the cat's face -- and having the cat remain still. Those were requirements of those cats' training.

Distance work was a given. Wild-caught birds free flew for hours in a hundred-square-miles. Wild-caught dolphins swam -- alone -- four hours away from the boat. The cats were guided from great distances by sound.

Whether the project was commercial or for the government, the Baileys required reliability. Not kind of reliable. Not even most-of-the-time reliable. Reliable. They weren't going for scores or a ribbon. There were, in many cases quite literally, human lives relying on the reliability of these animals' behavior.

And the method they used was the same one we're using here. They used positive reinforcement, extinction, and occasional negative punishment. They used positive punishment only about a dozen times in 50 years and 15000 animals -- and those times were at the request of the client.

They didn't choose this method because it felt good. They chose it because it gave them the results they needed in the fastest time. They experimented to find the best way. Trial and error. But most importantly, they kept DATA -- gobs and gobs of scientific data -- and based their programs off of that. What they "felt" like they knew simply had no bearing. Only the numbers, only the results.

The method -- the same method we're using here today -- is the method they found worked best. And it worked for every individual in every species they trained. That, more than anything else, convinces me to stick with this training method.

Honestly, the whole argument is utterly irrelevant. The Baileys have proven it can be done. Period. What remains is whether an individual trainer is capable of doing it. I've seen reliable traditionally-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Reliable positively-trained dogs and unreliable ones. Good traditional trainers and poor ones. Good positive trainers and poor ones.

If they're interested, they'll check it out. If not, their minds are closed, and they won't listen to anything you say. Don't waste your breath. Just train your dog to a level of reliability that satisfies you.

Melissa Alexander
mca @ clickersolutions.com
copyright 2001 Melissa C. Alexander

Intro till klickerträning (in swedish)

(från Agria Djurförsäkrings hemsida: http://www.agria.se/agria/index.nsf/LinkFrameSet?ReadForm&url=http://www.agria.se/Agria/text.nsf/id/1594)

Klickern - vägen till roligare träning
Klickerträning är numera en välkänd metod som hjälper till att höja motivationen för träning hos de allra flesta hundar! Här kan du läsa om grunderna för träningsmetoden.

Sedan början av 90-talet har klickerträningen blivit allt mer populär. Kännedomen och intresset har ökat lavinartat kanske mest tack vare amerikanskan Karen Pryor som har skrivit många böcker om just denna metod som tidigare mest användes vid delfinträning. Klickerträningen kan alltså inte ses som någon ny uppfinning då detta inlärningssätt varit känt sedan 30-talet.

Förstärkning av rätt beteende
Det finns egentligen inga gränser för vad du kan lära din hund med hjälp av en klicker. Det första du måste göra är att lära hunden att ”klick” betyder att det kommer en belöning. Ett klick kommer för hunden sedan betyda att just i det ögonblicket som du klickar gör den rätt och belöningen är på väg. Det är inte alls lika effektivt att använda rösten då vi på rösten kan ha olika tonlägen medan ett klick alltid låter likadant.

Rätt timing A och O
Det hela handlar om timing och att med klicket förstärka precis rätt ögonblick. Om du blir en duktig tränare så kommer din hund tycka att träningen är rolig och resultaten kommer då väldigt fort. Klickerträningen går att använda lika bra för lydnadsmoment som för att få bort oönskade beteenden, det är din fantasi som sätter gränserna.

Träning enbart i positiv anda
Med klickerträning arbetar du enbart i positiv anda. Det handlar om att förstärka ett korrekt beteende, inte att korrigera ett felaktigt beteende. En hund som klickertränas arbetar för att få belöningen, en hund som tränas med traditionella metoder arbetar ofta för att undvika obehaget av en korrigering.

Hunden blir aktiv
En annan fördel med klickerträningen är att hunden själv tar en aktiv del i träningsprocessen. Istället för att leda, rycka eller trycka på hunden för att visa vad den ska göra så får hunden själv räkna ut vad den ska göra för att få klicket och belöningen! En hund som inte är van vid denna typ av träning kan det i början gå lite trögt för eftersom den är van att bli visad till exakt vad den ska göra, men det kommer. Snart har du en mycket arbetsvillig hund.

Stort område
Klickerträning är ett oerhört stort område och det finns mycket bra böcker i ämnet. Innan du provar klickern på hunden bör du veta hur du ska göra. Sök på Internet, läs böcker eller varför inte gå en kurs. Dina tankar om hundträning kommer för alltid att vara förändrade!

Text: Sofie Lönn

Clicker Training basics using a hand-shy bird as an example

This is my favourite video to show people if they don't understand or are new to the concept of clicker training. In short, clicker training is the use of a conditioned reinforcer to shape desired behaviour. A "conditioned reinforcer" is something that the animals find motivating (such as a toy or food) paired (by association) with some sort of signal, in this case clicker trainers use a little tool that gives off a clear "click" sound when a button is pressed.




The learning principals can be applied to any animal (see the TAGteach video at the bottom - more about TAgteach: http://www.tagteach.com/).



Clicker training is a great way of training! Not convinced? Well then, tell me a better way to train a cat or even a chicken?! (That's how I got convinced):

Cats (also great intro-to-clicker-training video):



Chickens (great intro to the mechanics of clicker training):



Chicken agility:

Chimps and tools

Originally I started this as a swedish blog, but there were too many non-swedish speaking people I wanted to share this with so I am re-doing this. (Most swedes can manages english, but most english-speaking people can't read swedish).

Today's intersting fact I want to share is about tool making and chimpanzees. Very fascinating! I must say monkeys used to be some of my least favorite mammals but I am coming to like them more and more, it started when my partner gave me a book about them with lovely photographs. The part of me that find them the least favorite is the part that find them ever so slightly scary.

Article below is from:
http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/chimpanzees-make-spears-to-hunt-bushbabies/

Chimpanzees make spears to hunt bushbabies

Posted on 1 March, 2007 by Ed Yong

Hunting with tools used to be considered a unqiuely human ability. But chimpanzees in Senegal have now been seen fashioning spears from branches and using them to hunt bushbabies.

It is midday in Senegal and a chimpanzee is on the hunt. Its target is a bushbaby, a small, cute and nocturnal primate that spends its days sheltered in the hollow of a tree, beyond the reach of predators like the chimp.

But this hunter is not like others – it is intelligent, it is dextrous, and it has a plan. Snapping off a thin branch, the chimp strips it of twigs, leaves and bark. And with its teeth, it sharpens the tip into a murderous point.

It forcefully jabs its newly fashioned spear into the bushbaby’s hiding place, stabbing the hapless animal multiple times. The chimp breaks off the end of the branch that sheltered its prey and drags it from its hiding place, wounded and ready to be eaten.

Many animals, from insects to birds, are known to use tools, but chimpanzees are the most advanced non-human toolmakers of all. They crack nuts with hammers and anvils, and fish for termites using sticks.

But fashioning weapons, and using them to hunt is a fresh and advanced trick, even for them, and a trait that was previously deemed to be uniquely human.

Bushbabies are powerful leapers and if the chimp exposed its hiding place, it would have a strong chance of escaping. So the chimps have developed a technique to take them by surprise, immobilising them for easy capture.

This type of planning and the tool manipulation that makes it possible, requires great foresight and intellectual complexity. It is testament to the mental powers of these, our closest relatives.

Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani from Iowa State University have only seen spear-making in a single population of chimps, living near the Fongoli River in southeastern Senegal.

The technique may well be a new one, as only a quarter of the chimps they observed went through all the necessary steps. One young male chimp was even seen using the spear playfully, possibly learning the technique from his elders.

Usually hunting is a pursuit for adult male chimps, but Pruetz and Bertolani only saw females and youngsters spearing bushbabies. They reasoned that these groups usually gain a much smaller share of the meat brought back by the male hunters, because they are physically weaker, or because they are too low in the social order. In a similar way, only female bottlenose dolphins have ever been seen to use tools.

These findings could have startling implications for the origins of human tool use. The traditional wisdom says that ancient human men were concerned with hunting while the women specialised in gathering.

But if the Fongoli chimps are any indication, human women could have found specialised hunting niches, and in doing so, played a disproportionately large role in the development of tool technology.

In any case, the Fongoli chimps are clearly worth further study, particularly since their patchwork home of woodland and grassland is reminiscent of the types of places that early humans inhabited. As such, they could provide us valuable clues about how our own technologies began.

But they will tell us nothing if they are all dead. All four subspecies of chimp are currently endangered, and in danger from the multiple threats of the bushmeat trade and habitat loss. Urgent efforts are needed to ensure that these intelligent animals will continue to enthral us for generations to come.

Pruetz & Bertolani. 2007 Curr Biol 17: 1-6."

Next article, source:
http://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/03/13/opinion-not-so-unique-the-chimpanzee-stone-age-and-our-place-among-intelligent-animals/

Opinion: Not so unique - the chimpanzee Stone Age, and our place among intelligent animals

Posted on 13 March, 2007 by Ed Yong

This is the 50^th article for this blog. I’ve been writing for it for over six months now, and I pleasantly surprised that I’m still finding the enthusiasm to write for it regularly, and that people seem to be reading it.

This special article considers new evidence for the origins of chimpanzee tool use. It is the third piece of research I’ve seen in the last few months which shows that other animals share an ability previously thought to be the sole province of humans. In this article, I consider why these discoveries are now coming to light, and what they mean for us.

In the Ivory Coast, a small stream called Audrenisrou winds its way through the lowland rainforest of the Tai National Park. On the floodplain of this stream, at a site called Nuolo, lie several stones that seem unassuming at first glance. But to the trained eye, they are a window to the past.

Their shape is different to other stones that have been worn away by natural erosion. They have been flaked in systematic ways and many are flattened and sharp. Clearly, they were shaped by hand for a purpose – they are tools.

Their creators were not humans, but close relatives who lived in these rainforests thousands of years ago – the ancestors of modern chimpanzees.

Nuolo: humans or chimps?

The Nuolo stones were uncovered by Julio Mercader form the University of Calgary, Christophe Boesch from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, and their colleagues. They are a magnificent archaeological find - the first ever evidence of prehistoric ape behaviour anywhere in the world.

Humans have a rich prehistoric past, informed by key archaeological finds like the Olduwan sites. These findings provide us with a window into the past, showing us how our ancestors developed the tools that continue to serve us well today. For chimps, no such sites have been found, until now.

The evidence that the Nuolo specimens were created by chimps is compelling. The density of stone pieces in the site, the preferred types of rocks, the length of the stone flakes and the patterns of wear closely mirror those of modern chimp tools.

They also carry the evidence of their past uses, as hammers and anvils for cracking nuts. Their crevices contain granules of starch that clearly came from nuts. Mercador and Boesch even managed to narrow the granules’ origins down to three possible species, all of which are currently cracked and eaten by today’s chimps. In contrast, the team found scant remains of tubers and legumes, the main food source of forest-dwelling humans.

This suggests that prehistoric humans who also, over time, visited the river-side site were not the creators of the Nuolo tools. But Mercador and Boesch found even stronger evidence.

Human hammers usually weight less than 400g, and even our ancestors’ anvils weighed no more than a kilogram. The far more powerful chimp with its larger hand can wield a tool many times heavier, anywhere from one to nine kilograms in weight.

Mercador and Boesch found that the stone tools at Nuolo most likely weighed about 2 kilograms, far too heavy heavier for a human but well within the limits of even a weak chimpanzee.

A chimpanzee Stone Age

Together, this evidence paints a remarkable picture of a chimpanzee Stone Age, when ancient chimps were clearly cracking nuts in the same way they do now, over four millennia ago.

Chimpanzees are highly advanced tool users. But some critics have sold short their abilities, claiming that they learned the use of tools by, for lack of a better word, apeing nearby humans.

The Nuolo finds puts paid to that suggestion. The tools predated the advent of farming in the rainforest by some time. Nuolo also lacks evidence of any of the other tools used by humans to grind and pound starchy tubers.

Among chimpanzees, nut-cracking is clearly a cultural tradition, passed down over time through over 200 generations of chimps. Humans and chimps either developed this technology independently, or they inherited it from a common ancestor who had already begun to use tools.

We’re not so unique after all

With studies like this, the list of attributes that are unique to humans seems to be getting smaller all the time. In just the last few months, scientists have found that chimpanzees hunt with spears, jays (below) can plan for the future, and even the long-dead dinosaur Bambiraptor, gripped prey with opposable fingers.

But as we start to come down from our pedestal, we should not mourn the loss of our position, but rejoice in our connectedness with the rest of the living world. These discoveries emphasise our position at the end of a continuous evolutionary spectrum, rather than atop a looming precipice.

The outdated view that we have been awarded special dominion over other life should be replaced by a humbler view, where our position of biological authority is tempered with respect.

Why has it taken so long for such findings to come to light? Centuries ago, anthropomorphism was commonplace and these experiments would have seemed like pointing out the obvious. But of late, biology has taken a more reductionist turn and signs of potential animal behaviour are scrutinised under the harshest and most sceptical light.

In many cases, this quite rightly avoids the false conclusions based on flimsy and anecdotal evidence. But while scientists have taken great care to ensure that their interpretations are not biased towards human perspectives, the same cannot always be said the design of the experiments themselves.

Looking for intelligence

One of the most significant problems with studying animal intelligence is that many species experience and react to the world in completely different ways to us. For example, to pass the classic test for self-awareness, an animal must show that it recognises itself in a mirror, by examining a mark previously made on its face (see right).

Gorillas and dogs tend to fail the mirror test, but not because they are mentally less advanced than successful examinees like elephants or chimps. Gorillas view direct eye contact is a sign of aggression and tend to avoid it, while dogs rely on smell as their primary sense, rather than sight.

Simply put, can we truly claim to understand the limits of another animal’s intelligence when we know so comparatively little about their behaviour or perceptions? Cleverly designed experiments may bring us closer to an answer, but sadly, we may never get the opportunity to conduct them.

Save ourselves, the most intelligent animals on the planet – the great apes, elephants, dolphins and whales – are mostly endangered, with many species facing a very real threat of extinction. Chimpanzees, like those in the Tai National Park are under threat from the loss of their habitat, and the illegal bushmeat trade.

A massive amount of evidence now paints these, our closest cousins, as sophisticated animals with their own culture. Imagine how tragic it would be if they died out for good, leaving only a set of shaped stones as the only lasting signs of their intelligence.

Reference: Mercader, Barton, Gillespie, Harris, Kuhn, Tyler & Boesch. 2007. 4,300-Year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology. PNAS 104: 3043-3048.