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  3. The Culture Club In this week’s Nature, a group of zoologists led by And

The Culture Club In this week’s Nature, a group of zoologists led by And

游客2024-01-02  6
问题     The Culture Club
    In this week’s Nature, a group of zoologists led by Andrew Whiten of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and Christophe Boesch of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have provided that evidence. They have synthesized the results from seven chimpanzee-research centers scattered across Africa, and shown that chimps can, indeed, do more than just pass on the odd behaviour pattern here and there. Individual groups of chimps exhibit behavioural "complexes" that are recognisably different from those of other groups, yet seem to have no connection with environmental or genetic differences between the groups. If that is not culture, it is difficult to think what is.
    The problem that confronted Dr. Whiten and Dr. Boesch was how to disentangle which of chimpanzees’ many behaviour patterns are genetically instinctive, which are learnt by individuals in isolation (and so are not cultural, because not copied from others) and which are culturally transmitted (by animals copying one another). They solved it by standardising the reports from the research centres, and paying as much attention to what the animals in each place did not do as to what they did.
    Behaviour patterns found at all sites were deemed as likely to be genetic as cultural (leaf-sponging turned out to be in this category), as were those whose absence was due to some environmental factor (fishing algae out of ponds is impossible where there are no algae to fish). Nor were behaviour patterns that did not appear to be sporadic (digging for termites, rather than using a stick to fish for them) classified as cultural. They could just as well have been the result of individual invention, as of copying.
    That still left 39 behaviour patterns that were common at some sites and absent from others. Termite fishing with twigs and the midribs of leaves were two. So were breaking nuts open with a hammer (which could be done in four different ways, each with its own pattern of occurrence among the sites), and picking marrow out of the bones of hunted animals using a tool. Nor does chimpanzee culture revolve solely around food. Some chimps have developed flywhisks in the form of leaves. Others have learnt how to tickle themselves. And there is even a behaviour pattern the researchers refer to as " rain dance" , though it takes place in response to rain, rather than as a way of conjuring it up.
    The idea that these and some 30 other behaviour patterns are cultural rather than genetic was supported by the fact that particular subspecies (which differ from one another genetically) are not associated with particular behaviours. Indeed, abrupt cultural transitions often occur in the middle of subspecific homelands. Short of developing language (and there are a few researchers who believe that chimps can also manage that), it is hard to see what more man’s closest relatives could possibly be required to do to be admitted to the culture club.
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答案     文化俱乐部
    在本周出版的《自然》上，由苏格兰圣安德鲁斯大学的安德鲁-怀特和德国莱比锡马克斯-普朗克人类学进化研究所的克里斯托夫-布伊希带领的动物学家小组提供了黑猩猩属于“文化俱乐部”这一证据。他们综合了分散于非洲的七个黑猩猩研究中心的观察结果，发现黑猩猩除了在各处传递独特的行为模式，还拥有更多的能力。每个黑猩猩群表现出的行为“综合性”都与其它群体明显不同，但好像与各自差异化的环境或遗传又无关联。如果这都不是文化的话，那么很难想像到底什么是文化。
    怀特博士和布伊希博士所面临的问题是，怎么从黑猩猩诸多行为模式中分辨出哪些是属于基因本能性的，哪些是属于孤立的群体后天学来的(同样也不是文化的，因为不是通过模仿学来的)，哪些是属于文化上传递的(通过动物间的相互模仿)。于是，他们对来自各研究中心的报告进行了标准化处理，他们不但注意每个地方的黑猩猩所做的事，而且关注他们所不做的事情。(并对每个地方的动物所做的事和没有做的事给予了同等的关注)。
    他们认为，在所有地方观察到的动物行为模式既有可能是遗传的，也有可能是文化上的(用树叶收集雨水和露水的行为就属于这一类)，那些因环境因素不同而缺失的行为模式也属于这种情况(池塘里没有藻类，便不可能出现钓食藻类的行为)。一些看起来并不是偶发的行为模式(例如，不用棍子引诱白蚁上钩，而是挖坑寻找白蚁)也未被纳入文化模式。这种行为既有可能是模仿的结果，也可能是个体独创的结果。
    除此之外，还有39种行为模式在某些地方是很常见的，但在其它地方却没有出现。用小树枝和树叶中脉寻找白蚁便是两个例子。以下情况也然：用锤子砸开坚果(可以用四种不同方式敲开，每种方式都具有只在某些地区发生的独特模式)，以及用工具将猎物骨髓取出等。黑猩猩文化也不是完全以食物为中心。有些黑猩猩发明了树叶蝇掸，有些则学会了给自己呵痒，甚至还有一种被研究人员称之为“祈雨舞”的行为模式，不过这只是黑猩猩对下雨作出的反应，而不是真的祈雨。
    将这些例子和其它30来种行为模式归为文化模式而非基因模式，是有事实依据的：特殊亚种(相互间基因上有区别)与特殊行为没有对应关系。事实上，突发性文化转变经常发生在亚种生活区域之内。除了仍待开发的语言能力(但是也有少数研究人员认为黑猩猩有这个能力／有语言能力)，很难说出入类最近的这个亲戚还需要做些什么才能被接纳到文化俱乐部中来。
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