Culture is a construction that starts from shared life and that is established in the form of “collective” and purposeful acts. In general, it begins to be acquired in early childhood at the hands of parents, but will continue to expand throughout adult life in different contexts. It endows individuals who share time and space with a sense of essential uniqueness, although at the same time it emphasizes the distances with those who are foreign to it.
For many years it was thought that culture was an exclusively human property, requiring the support of a nervous system of enormous complexity that could only be found in our species. But in recent years, hypotheses have emerged that refute this belief, and which the scientific community is beginning to consider.
In this article we will address the question of culture in non-human animals, trying to answer questions that were formulated in the time of Aristotle and that slept in the unjust bed of scientific irrelevance until the mid-20th century. So that: Do animals have culture? We will explore this topic below.
The issue of culture in animals is one of the most controversial in current science, due to the resonances that its acceptance would have on how we relate to the rest of living beings. It would mean recognizing them as creatures closer to our species than was ever considered, which would exceed the simple attribution of basic emotions that the majority grants them. It would surely be an incentive to promote laws through which to protect their legacy, in the same way as is done with numerous human groups throughout this world.
The difficulties in reaching a conclusion in this regard arise from the lack of definition of the word “culture” itself, since we still lack an epistemological space that protects it and allows us to advance in its understanding (and not only with regard to the human animal). Many of the traditional delimitations excluded in their own formulation everything that was beyond the reach of our species, although as will be seen, this vision is beginning to be questioned to include other beings with whom we share the planet. Let’s try to delve a little deeper into all of this.
What do we mean by “animal culture”?
The first studies on animal culture were carried out during the 1940s, and their purpose was to establish whether non-human living beings could “acquire” behaviors as a result of social learning, without these being able to be explained through instincts. The development of these prospections was not easy, as it fought against deep convictions coming from religion, for which the human being would be designed in the image and likeness of his corresponding God (and to whom unique traits were therefore attributed in the kingdom of God). nature).
It has traditionally been thought that culture requires complex brains, since it has been connected with writing and oral tradition, as well as with the symbolic properties that all this has in the case of human beings. Through its mediation, the reality of the moment could be shared among individuals of the same group, and even codified verbally to be transmitted to successive generations, strengthening the sense of consistency beyond the limited time that a single subject has to live.
From this perspective, culture would be a uniquely human fact, and what is observed in animals would be nothing more than a more or less sophisticated survival mechanism.
The fact that animals do not have communication systems of a complexity comparable to those of humans has led different authors to coin a specific term for them, “preculture”, through which an explicit distinction between the way in which some and others construct the traditions that make up their common life On the other hand, there are researchers who postulate an absolute analogy, reconciling animal tradition with human culture and considering them interchangeable phenomena. The debate on this issue remains open and unresolved.
Most of the work carried out to date is oriented towards what is known as imitative (or vicarious) learning, which requires the observation of a behavior and its subsequent reproduction, although with obvious and tangible purposes. In any case, it would be necessary that such patterns could not be explained by trial/error (the latter are much slower to consolidate in the basic behavioral repertoire) or by survival instinct (biology). At the same time, they should deploy in one group (the same one they initially break into), and not reproduce spontaneously in others.
In addition to imitation, The culture acquired through teaching and language in animals has also received attention Both involve the use of certain symbolic capacities that until now have only been described in humans, so their evidence has only been testimonial in contexts other than their own. Symbolization allows the human animal to accumulate a very abundant culture at an intergenerational level, as well as its progressive enrichment and its persistence over the years.
In field studies aimed at evaluating this aspect (coming from a discipline that has been coined as “Animal Culture”), it has been observed that the most common thing is for a single individual to perform behaviors spontaneously (acting as a social model), and that Over time, they spread to those close to them and to the entire community. Those cases in which the impact of such learning exceeds the primary group and reaches different subjects, with whom there is no kinship relationship, are considered cultural.
Examples
Almost all the work developed to date has focused on chimpanzees, due to their evolutionary proximity to humans and because they are one of the few species in which an intention aimed at deliberately teaching something has been described. Likewise, cetaceans and birds have shown to have a more complex language than was believed just a few decades ago, which is why they have also captured the interest of many scholars of the disciplines involved in understanding the phenomenon. Let’s look at some examples for each of these cases.
Chimpanzees were the first animals in which the possible presence of a culture as such was studied, and today they continue to be the ones that accumulate the most evidence on this same point. These animals live in very complex societies, in which an obvious hierarchy can be seen, and It has been possible to verify how behaviors that started from a single individual (in the form of exemplary acts) extended to the group as a whole progressively, without being explained by the action of biology.
The use of tools, such as rocks or sticks, is understood as culture among primates. The most studied have occurred in groups of great apes in arid environments, which learned to use thin, flexible rods to extract and ingest termites that would otherwise be inaccessible. Such learning is also accompanied by the exact procedure through which to carry out this action, which requires a specific rotation of the utensil. It is believed that this way of collecting arises as a result of social learning, and that it has been culturally perpetuated by imitation of younger specimens.
This exact mechanism could explain other customs described in chimpanzees, such as washing fruits before eating them Some field work has observed the way in which certain hygienic/prophylactic habits have been transmitted both horizontally (between contemporaries) and vertically (between different generations) in very particular places in the world, related both to food (washing food on the shore of the rivers, eg) as with grooming (raising a partner’s arms to wash the armpits, eg).
Despite this, there are doubts about how human beings have been able to contribute their influence to these acquisitions, since they are much more common in captivity (perhaps due to the involuntary reinforcement of these behaviors, for example).
Among apes it has been possible to verify how they are carried out deliberate attempts to teach other group members what has been learned through experience, especially in the form of warnings aimed at discouraging young people from accessing areas that are considered dangerous, or to avoid attacking animals that are perceived as natural predators. Today it is known that this type of learning extends far beyond the immediate environment, being shared over time with the direct descendants of those who once acquired it from their parents (forming a “shared narrative” about what is appropriate and what is not within a specific ecological framework).
2. Cetaceans
Cetaceans are mammals adapted to marine life, although it is known that they originally roamed the land. It has been, without a doubt, the animal group that has received the most attention (along with primates) regarding a possible common culture. The orcas, whales and dolphins stand out; all of them creditors of great intelligence which includes the option of communicating through sounds (high or low) that hold meaning for the rest of the group members.
In these animals, culture has been considered, for example, the differential use of vocal tone in different groups; which allows them to recognize themselves as part of a broader group and protect themselves in the event that an invader appears in their territory. It is an imitation that, effectively, has the objective of increasing survival; and that in the end supposes a behavior that is transmitted between generations and allows families or herds to be identified.
Orcas are also known to show their young how to hunt, through strategies that include group and individual offensive. In this case it has been described that females (adults and older) They teach their young to deliberately beach themselves on the shore, to better access some of the prey that spend a lot of time on the beach It is a behavior that is accessed through learning, and that orcas never acquire in captivity or raised in isolation conditions.
3. Birds
Birds are the third group, after primates and cetaceans, that has been studied the most in terms of culture. More specifically, it has been observed that some birds that live in specific areas (parks, for example) acquire the basic habits to benefit from these environments: go to places where it is possible to obtain food (such as near terraces where people deposit your waste) or even open containers.
Thus, it has been seen that certain birds manipulate the feeders of free-range animals in order to access their appetizing contents, and that this behavior subsequently disperses among the rest of the birds that live nearby.
The animal species included in the psittaciformes family (especially parrots that live in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania) have been considered beings endowed with extraordinary intelligence. They are known to imitate the sounds they can hear very well, and In the case of human speech, there is evidence that they not only reproduce it, but also make use of it with clear communicative intention (choosing the right words based on your needs).
When parrots learn a high number of words, they can construct new ones using the grammatical rules of the language (even though they are not real terms or accepted by social consensus). When they are useful for their purposes, they can “teach” them to other birds with which they share space (in the event that they are united by a quality bond), becoming a behavior that goes beyond social learning and that is usually conceived as a form of culture that deserves to be studied.
