A pioneer in the study of animal cultures, primatologist Andrew Whiten, professor emeritus at the University of St Andrews (Scotland), has just published in the review Science a vast panorama of the domain. The species and practices observed are more and more numerous and varied. It describes the scope of the phenomenon and measures the consequences.
You have devoted your career to the study of what are called “animal cultures”. The expression may surprise: no animal has built Notre-Dame de Paris, painted “La Joconde” or invented football. How then to speak of animal culture?
I must say right away that no researcher in animal behavior claims that animals have the repertoire of human cultures, or even anything that comes close to it. What we share, them and us, are the fundamentals. Because what is a culture? These are behaviors common to a group of individuals, acquired through what we call social learning, the observation of other members of the group.
This social learning is necessary, but obviously not sufficient. It may only have a short-term effect or may be limited to a few individuals. But when it spreads, from individual to individual, and becomes a collective characteristic, we speak of tradition, or of culture. When we adopt this definition, we realize that it concerns very many animal species, even if there is no doubt that the animals did not build the Eiffel Tower.
When did the idea of animal culture take hold?
The clues appeared in the middle of the last century. Bird watchers have found that birds learn their songs in a social way, with distinct dialects between neighboring groups. In Japan, primatologists observed how macaques began to wash their sweet potatoes in a stream: first a first, then another, and finally the whole group. The Japanese called it a proto-culture, as a precaution. Then little by little, the observations multiplied.
My fellow primatologists and I have seen the particular behaviors accumulate in chimpanzees in various groups in Africa. In 1999 we published an article in which we identified nearly 40 behaviors covering a very wide repertoire: the search for food, the use of tools, the habitat, the seduction maneuvers … If we think about it, these are the areas that spontaneously come to our attention. spirit to differentiate our cultures, between us Scots and you French: language, cuisine, architecture. We were there at the end of the twentiethe century. But for twenty years, the field has literally exploded, with a magnificent galaxy of discoveries, which I wanted to present.
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