Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to
Speaker 2: go into the vault for an older episode of the show.
Speaker 2: This one originally published January tenth, twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 2: it is part three in our series on throwing behavior
Speaker 2: in non human animals and what else is there to say?
Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 2: three in our series I'm throwing behavior in animals, especially
Speaker 2: non human animals, but we'll be talking about throwing of
Speaker 2: the human variety some today now. In previous episodes, we
Speaker 2: discussed a paper documenting a kind of throwing or what
Speaker 2: appeared to be a kind of throwing in octopuses in Australia,
Speaker 2: which use their siphons to blast clouds of silt in
Speaker 2: their neighbors' faces when they get a little too close.
Speaker 2: We discussed the ability of elephants to throw with their trunks,
Speaker 2: and we talked about mongooses doing brutal reverse granny shots
Speaker 2: to bypass the defenses of armored millipedes and, as Mick
Speaker 2: Jagger would say, get the meat. Today, our discussion continues
Speaker 2: with a very important consideration.
Speaker 1: Well, when I told my wife that this was the
Speaker 1: topic we were going to be covering, the question she asked, goes, well,
Speaker 1: what about Airbud? Are you going to talk about Airbud?
Speaker 1: Handle the air Bud.
Speaker 2: Question a very important facet of this issue.
Speaker 1: Yes, Airbud is, of course a nineteen ninety seven motion
Speaker 1: picture about a dog that plays competitive basketball based on
Speaker 1: the At this point, I think classic sports movie trope.
Speaker 1: There's nothing in the rule book that says a blank
Speaker 1: can't play whatever the sport happens to be, And you
Speaker 1: can put into that blank basically any animal, whatever animal
Speaker 1: seems doable from a movie making standpoint and acceptable to
Speaker 1: the human imagination. And I guess you could ultimately go
Speaker 1: beyond the realm of humans into other things as long
Speaker 1: as you could somehow cobble together a script around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if I've ever seen another one
Speaker 2: of these. I think I saw Airbud when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, But I know it's a tradition right there,
Speaker 2: you know, there's a million movies like Jeremy the Football Horse.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think one of the earliest, if not
Speaker 1: the earliest, examples of this. And I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: because this is not a subgenre that I have personally
Speaker 1: explored a lot. But I do remember seeing parts of
Speaker 1: this one on TV the nineteen seventy six movie Gus,
Speaker 1: which also had Ed Asner and Don Knot sent it
Speaker 1: to give you an idea of the you know, the
Speaker 1: caliber of talent that was involved in this, But it
Speaker 1: was about a terrible NFL team. I think there's something
Speaker 1: like the California Atomics or something, and they end up
Speaker 1: deciding to field a donkey as a kicker in the game,
Speaker 1: and I guess it works out for them. Again, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in the rule, but this says a donkey can't
Speaker 1: play inn FL.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I imagine movies like this must just encourage an
Speaker 2: overly stringent form of legalism when it comes to professional sports. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: does it say games must take place on planet Earth
Speaker 2: and so forth?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, they will at this point. Surely the future
Speaker 1: proof things. But if we're going just based on these films,
Speaker 1: it would seem that for a while they didn't have
Speaker 1: all the loopholes filled in on this, and and people
Speaker 1: were just constantly rolling out new animals, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: say anything about ardvarks. So ardvarks are in play huh
Speaker 1: in Professional Curly Yes, okay. But outside of Gus and Airbud,
Speaker 1: you also have movies like two thousands MVP Most Valuable Primate,
Speaker 1: in which a chimpanzee plays soccer. There are also I
Speaker 1: think thirteen additional Airbud sequels and spin offs.
Speaker 2: Human they're also primates. All existing soccer players are primates.
Speaker 1: Well, tell the producers of MVP Most Valuable Primate about that.
Speaker 1: They maybe they actually touched on in the screenplay, but
Speaker 1: I doubt it.
Speaker 2: But I'm sorry you were. How many air Bud movies
Speaker 2: are there?
Speaker 1: Thirteen by Mike count, That includes the air Buddies like
Speaker 1: spinoff series, and interestingly enough, two thousand and six is
Speaker 1: air Buddies. That was Don Nottt's final film. He voiced
Speaker 1: a bloodhound in it.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know. Does that that means animals talk
Speaker 1: in air Buddies. I don't know if animals talked in Airbud.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you remember, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I'm inclined to think not. I think the Dog and
Speaker 2: Air Bud was silent. But yeah, well, but by the
Speaker 2: time they get into the Buddies movies, which by the way,
Speaker 2: descend into titles like Space Buddies and Santa Buddies. As
Speaker 2: far as I can tell, these are just an excuse
Speaker 2: to have a screen full of Golden Retriever puppies for
Speaker 2: eighty minutes. I think it is absolutely crass mercenary filmmaking.
Speaker 2: It's just ultimate cute exploitation. But this was also the
Speaker 2: series that in an episode long ago, we suggested should
Speaker 2: do a crossover with the Clive Barker verse and create
Speaker 2: hell Buddies.
Speaker 1: Now. There's also just real quick a few other mentions.
Speaker 1: There's nineteen ninety nine Soccer Dog, the movie. There's two
Speaker 1: thousand and five's The Karate Dog, and then there's the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six movie Ed, in which a chimpanzee plays baseball. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then there's nineteen seventy eight's Matilda about a boxing kangaroo.
Speaker 1: That one has interested me because I noticed its stars
Speaker 1: Elliott Gould, and it was also one of the films
Speaker 1: you could pull up on the Criterion Collections streaming service
Speaker 1: at least several months back.
Speaker 2: Boxing kangaroo. Is that a waltzing Matilda joke?
Speaker 1: I imagine? So yeah, And I looked a little bit
Speaker 1: into this related to this podcast episod, and I quickly realized, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: the boxing kangaroo is a whole thing unto itself that
Speaker 1: does have some basis in kangaroo behavior, but often in
Speaker 1: like a misinterpretation of kangaroo defensive behavior. But it has
Speaker 1: kind of like a life of its own outside of
Speaker 1: this particular picture. It might be something to come back
Speaker 1: to in the future.
Speaker 2: Now, one more thing about the Airbud franchise. You know,
Speaker 2: before they get to air Buddies, I think you were
Speaker 2: saying that the Golden Retrievers end up doing a bunch
Speaker 2: of different sports, and they've all got puns in the titles.
Speaker 2: So the one where Airbud does baseball is called Airbud
Speaker 2: Seventh Inning Fetch.
Speaker 1: You got to get some puns in there, all right.
Speaker 1: But bringing it all back around to today's episode, Okay,
Speaker 1: some of these we can just instantly dismiss for now.
Speaker 1: We don't need to concern ourselves with boxing kangaroos or
Speaker 1: karate dogs because these do not involve throwing. You know,
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on the sports that involve throwing
Speaker 1: a ball. Gus, that's impressive, but he's a kicker. Despite
Speaker 1: just participating in a game that has a lot of
Speaker 1: throwing in it doesn't seem to be throwing anything. So
Speaker 1: we really only have to worry about the concept of
Speaker 1: dogs playing scoring games with balls and chimpanzees playing scoring
Speaker 1: games with balls. Real quick, let's talk about dogs. And
Speaker 1: you may have additional expertise on this to throw in
Speaker 1: here experience from being a dog owner. But as far
Speaker 1: as dogs go, they can obviously be trained to do
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, often very impressive things, including chasing,
Speaker 1: after catching, and fetching balls and sticks, and as is
Speaker 1: evident in many videos online, they can also be trained
Speaker 1: to bounce basketballs into baskets off of their noses, off
Speaker 1: of their snouts.
Speaker 2: That always, I don't know, Like a basketball is a
Speaker 2: fairly massive object. I would think booping a basketball in
Speaker 2: midflight with the snout would really kind of hurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure, but I looked around, and as
Speaker 1: far as dogs throwing, I'm not so certain about this. Drops. Yes,
Speaker 1: they can. You'll see plenty of examples of dogs catching
Speaker 1: things dropping them, But I'm not sure. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: you really have anything like throwing even kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, a tossing aside of a stick.
Speaker 2: Or a ball, well, not targeted throwing. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think what's quite common for dogs is something more like
Speaker 2: what the mongoose did with the millipede. Dogs will, especially
Speaker 2: dogs that have been trained in kind of unusual environments,
Speaker 2: with say a puzzle type treat retrieval toy, you know,
Speaker 2: so you have like some kind of toy where the
Speaker 2: treat is hidden inside and the dog has to manipulate
Speaker 2: the toy to get the treat out of the middle.
Speaker 2: In those cases, I've seen dogs throwing the toy in
Speaker 2: order to try to extract the treat, but it's very haphazard.
Speaker 2: They're not like hitting a target. They're more just kind
Speaker 2: of like throwing it wildly by tossing their head and
Speaker 2: it'll bounce off the wall or something, and maybe the
Speaker 2: treat will tumble out.
Speaker 1: Now. I also some discussions and some papers about the
Speaker 1: possibility that a dog using a chewing stick is essentially
Speaker 1: a form of tool use, and this would also apply
Speaker 1: to any other animal that uses a stick in such
Speaker 1: a fashion. So that's an interesting idea. To consider.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, you can make that argument, I guess by
Speaker 2: the same token, you could say, like a bear scratching
Speaker 2: its butt against a tree would be a form of
Speaker 2: tool use.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Chimps, However, chimps are a different case entirely. So
Speaker 1: we're not saying that chimpanzees should be encouraged to play
Speaker 1: baseball or soccer or any other professional sport or any
Speaker 1: sport for that matter. But they have certainly demonstrated their
Speaker 1: use of tools in both captivity and in the wild.
Speaker 1: And this includes the targeted use of thrown objects. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the objects or substances I guess observed to
Speaker 1: be thrown a lot, and this is something that is
Speaker 1: of course well documented online. In fact, when we were
Speaker 1: researching other aspects of animals throwing things, some of the
Speaker 1: search engines I was using, We're very excited to give
Speaker 1: me content of animals throwing feces, particularly chimps throwing feces.
Speaker 1: I was not looking for this information at the time,
Speaker 1: but the Internet really wanted to desert it to me.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Now this kind of goes back into something we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier, the question if you're doing something with something
Speaker 1: that came from your own body, is it truly tool use?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I guess when I was
Speaker 2: thinking about substances that come out of an animal's own body,
Speaker 2: I was thinking about like things like spider silk, or
Speaker 2: like the irticating hairs that come off of a tarantula's back,
Speaker 2: where the ways in which these substances are used are
Speaker 2: not very generalized, They're not very free form. Instead, they
Speaker 2: seem to be pretty tightly controlled, instinctually determined behavioral patterns,
Speaker 2: whereas I don't know, you could say, maybe like a
Speaker 2: chimpanzee pooping and then throwing its poop at someone or
Speaker 2: something that seems to be a little more free form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. Also, and this is not something that
Speaker 1: any of the papers I looked that got into, But
Speaker 1: I guess there's a difference between poop directly delivered to
Speaker 1: the hand and then thrown and like poop that is
Speaker 1: just like say, in a creature's habitat or in its
Speaker 1: general area that it then picks up, maybe not even
Speaker 1: its own poop. So I guess we'd have to consider
Speaker 1: that as well.
Speaker 2: Now, I do think we should be clear that feces
Speaker 2: are not the only objects that apes like chimpanzees throw,
Speaker 2: but it is a feces are often observed to be thrown,
Speaker 2: especially in captivity.
Speaker 1: I think, yes, yeah, definitely. The sources I was looking
Speaker 1: at were definitely mentioning this because in captivity, especially historically,
Speaker 1: there are often less things for the animal to interact with.
Speaker 1: The poop is something that will happen eventually, will be
Speaker 1: in the enclosure, and therefore is available to pick up, manipulate,
Speaker 1: and throw if desired, whereas in the wild there are
Speaker 1: other competitors out there, the other things that could pick up,
Speaker 1: like sticks, like rocks that could be thrown, and we
Speaker 1: have seen them throw such objects both in captivity but
Speaker 1: also in the wild, and so it seems to be
Speaker 1: a situation where there are far more incidents of poop
Speaker 1: throwing in captivity versus the wild, though they have been
Speaker 1: observed to throw poop in the wild as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess I would not disqualify something from
Speaker 2: counting as tool use just because it consists of an
Speaker 2: animal's own excreta or something that came out of their body.
Speaker 2: I mean you could use poop, I suppose, as a
Speaker 2: tool for all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is kind of a tangent, but I
Speaker 1: was looking around and back. In twenty seventeen, a team
Speaker 1: from the University of Calgary hosted a competition to make
Speaker 1: use of astronaut waste, and the winning submission was titled
Speaker 1: Astroplastic from Colon to Colony, in which the DNA of
Speaker 1: an E. Coli bacteria was modified so that it removed
Speaker 1: acids from human feces, and they did not use actual
Speaker 1: poop in the experiment. It used like a mixture of
Speaker 1: things to simulate poop. But the idea was here that
Speaker 1: this this modified E. Coli would produce a plastic that
Speaker 1: can then be used in a three D printer to
Speaker 1: produce simple tools like wrenches and screwdrivers. So the aim
Speaker 1: here would be sort of twofold. So say you're going
Speaker 1: to Mars on an extended mission. This way you don't
Speaker 1: have to bring those tools with you. You don't have to
Speaker 1: pay for the cost of getting those tools into orbit
Speaker 1: and then to Mars, and then likewise you have to
Speaker 1: worry less about getting rid of human waste on the journey.
Speaker 1: That's quite brilliant. Yes, I one day hope to have
Speaker 1: all kinds of plastic tools and toys made out of poop. Now,
Speaker 1: this is sort of another aside, but this gets back
Speaker 1: to chimps specifically, if you might get into the question
Speaker 1: of why do chimps throw poop specifically, even if they
Speaker 1: have a choice of their objects to throw? And I
Speaker 1: found this rather fascinating older paper. This is from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six. It is a rush and paper titled a
Speaker 1: neglected form of quasi aggression in Apes Possible relevance for
Speaker 1: the origins of humor. This was the current anthropology and
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read a quote from it here.
Speaker 1: According to people working at the Pavlov Center, at least
Speaker 1: four adult chimpanzee males and one adult female would also
Speaker 1: throw feces at people, expressing joy when the target was
Speaker 1: hit by making a playface, hooting, clapping, and stamping around.
Speaker 1: They did not, however, throw feces at persons of whom
Speaker 1: they were afraid. We have received the same information from
Speaker 1: people in charge of chimpanzees at the Saint Petersburg and
Speaker 1: Moscow zoos at the Moscow Zoo. The same behavior was
Speaker 1: observed in orangutanks.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, so at least in these cases the chimpanzees seemed
Speaker 2: to get a real hoot out of hitting somebody with
Speaker 2: some poop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this is older research, and I detect
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of anthropomorphizing here, But the
Speaker 1: distinction about fear was very interesting. So maybe in this
Speaker 1: we do see the roots of something like humor. But
Speaker 1: elsewhere primatologists do seem to agree that throwing poop, stone, sticks, etc.
Speaker 1: And primates is often an act of communication, which matches
Speaker 1: up with some of the things we've been discussing elsewhere
Speaker 1: in this series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that we will get to in a little
Speaker 2: bit when we talk about human evolution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and with gimps, it's not even it's not even
Speaker 1: a case of like of necessarily purely spontaneous communication. Like
Speaker 1: it's easy, I think to make that leap. You think
Speaker 1: of like an animal trying to say something, not having
Speaker 1: the ability to say it, or having difficulty relaying that message,
Speaker 1: and then sort of sort of spontaneously picking something up
Speaker 1: and throwing it, or perhaps it already has something that's
Speaker 1: hand and it throws it. And this would still be
Speaker 1: very fascinating. I mean, even you think of like a
Speaker 1: zoo environment, for example, the chimp is attempting interspecies communication,
Speaker 1: even if that interspecies communication consists of throwing a rock
Speaker 1: or some poop at somebody, right, but it's not always spontaneous.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is premeditated in the case of stone throwing,
Speaker 1: that's been observed. One of the more famous examples of
Speaker 1: this was Santino the chimpanzee born in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: who made headlines multiple times, and I think sometimes the
Speaker 1: news cycle would come back around to him because in
Speaker 1: addition to being a pretty talented artist, he also had
Speaker 1: some issues with people, like to collect stones ahead of
Speaker 1: time so that he could throw them at visitors to
Speaker 1: the Throuvic Zoo in Sweden.
Speaker 2: Now that's really interesting, the collecting of stones in advance aspect,
Speaker 2: because of course that indicates some kind of forethought or
Speaker 2: premeditation or planning, like seeing the stone as a tool
Speaker 2: for future use in a moment when it is not
Speaker 2: currently needed for that use.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently it wasn't an isolated incident. It's said
Speaker 1: that he planned hundreds of stone throwing attacks on zoo
Speaker 1: visitors over the years. Sadly from his enclosure in December
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, and was subsequently shot along with
Speaker 1: some other escapees, which was a pretty controversial incident recently.
Speaker 1: There's a fair amount of coverage about that, but I
Speaker 1: don't think everybody necessarily connected that this was the same
Speaker 1: chimp that had made headlines in the past for the
Speaker 1: throwing of rocks.
Speaker 2: And for art apparently.
Speaker 1: And for art. Yeah, you can find videos of him
Speaker 1: online doing some painting, you know, manipulating of pigments on
Speaker 1: a canvas to create some interesting works.
Speaker 2: Well, sat in for Santino, but led an interesting life.
Speaker 1: Now there's another interesting wrinkle in stone throwing with chimps
Speaker 1: that I was reading about, because in the wild, chimps
Speaker 1: will also engage in what is called a cumulative stone throwing,
Speaker 1: as reported by cool at All in Nature Scientific Reports
Speaker 1: back in twenty s sixteen, modern chimpanzees will actually create
Speaker 1: stone accumulation sites that are reminiscent of human cares, of
Speaker 1: human assemblages of stone, something that we often associate with deliberate,
Speaker 1: cultured acts of human behavior something. And this is both
Speaker 1: from an archaeological standpoint, when archaeologists find examples of stones
Speaker 1: that have been gathered together in one area, and also
Speaker 1: I think we just individually encounter this as well, whether
Speaker 1: you see piles of stones that are put there for
Speaker 1: a purpose, Like perhaps you're on a nature walk and
Speaker 1: these stones are gathered together to help mark the path
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be on, or you often see this
Speaker 1: done out of for pure amusement. At times, you'll just
Speaker 1: find places where humans have been around multiple stones and
Speaker 1: there's like kind of this irresistible urge to arrange them
Speaker 1: or stack them up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it's interesting, But I also so I'm
Speaker 2: hesitant to make the speculative leap here. I mean, I
Speaker 2: know I was reading about this paper, and I know
Speaker 2: what some people have said about the you know, the
Speaker 2: accumulation of stones, like throwing stones into the into a
Speaker 2: hollow tree or something until they really pile up. That suggests, well,
Speaker 2: maybe they're creating some kind of like ritual monument, like
Speaker 2: you know, like humans would create a care and for
Speaker 2: some kind of purpose to be observed and to mean something.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's really evidence present to jump to
Speaker 2: that kind of conclusion, because that seems like a different
Speaker 2: order of that symbolic behavior that, as far as I know,
Speaker 2: is probably only the province of humans. But I guess
Speaker 2: we could always be surprised. It seems kind of a
Speaker 2: speculative leap to me, but it's still really interesting behavior. Nonetheless,
Speaker 2: I mean that the chimpanzee is piling up the stones
Speaker 2: for some interesting reason, even if it's not to like
Speaker 2: create a symbolic marker for other chimpanzees to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So this particular paper they're drawing on various
Speaker 1: surveys and accounts, and they found four populations in West
Speaker 1: Africa where chimps quote habitually bang and throw rocks against
Speaker 1: trees or toss them into tree cavities, resulting in conspicuous
Speaker 1: stone accumulations at these sites. They point out that chimps,
Speaker 1: along with kibuchin monkeys and long tailed macaques, are known
Speaker 1: to use stones as hammers to crack open and cased foods.
Speaker 1: They point out that stone throwing in chimpanzees was first
Speaker 1: described by Jane Goodall, who documented aimed throwing of sticks
Speaker 1: and rocks by male chimpanzees during agonistic displays, and this
Speaker 1: behavior was later described by researchers for other non human
Speaker 1: primates as well, including Japanese macaques, wild baboons, and capuchin monkeys.
Speaker 1: Female bearded kbuchins have also been observed to throw rocks
Speaker 1: during courtship interactions, which I guess this would be like
Speaker 1: tenderly throwing pebbles against a window to get their lover's
Speaker 1: interest at night without awakening the parents downstairs, or maybe not.
Speaker 2: I like it, but human metaphors aside, I mean like it.
Speaker 2: It is interesting that they would throw rocks at each
Speaker 2: other for apparent purposes other than threats or intimidation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, coming back into the communication aspect of it now,
Speaker 1: I mentioned the using some sort of nutcracking behavior with
Speaker 1: rocks that can sometimes lead to those rocks accumulating in
Speaker 1: certain places, which is a different type of accumulation versus
Speaker 1: what we're talking with the chimps here. Also, the paper
Speaker 1: points out the Japanese macaques engage in stone handling, which
Speaker 1: isn't tool use but solitary object play behavior, and it
Speaker 1: actually results in use where patterns on the stones and
Speaker 1: the stones will then end up accumulating at quote unquote PlayStations.
Speaker 2: So just sort of like handling, manipulating a stone, not
Speaker 2: really doing anything in particular with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is I get. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: the monolith hasn't really kicked in yet, but they're but
Speaker 1: they're handling the stone, but chimpanzees are well beyond all
Speaker 1: of these, like chimpanzees are second only to humans in
Speaker 1: the variance of their tool usage. They make use of
Speaker 1: simple sticks, stone hammers, stone cleavers to link to cut foods.
Speaker 1: They've even been observed to hunt sleeping bush babies with
Speaker 1: wooden spears. So this is I think only been observed
Speaker 1: in female chimpanzees. But they'll take take a stick and
Speaker 1: sort of sort of sharpen it with their teeth or
Speaker 1: chew on it, you know, to get something like a point,
Speaker 1: and then use that stick to stab into the hollows
Speaker 1: of trees where there's a sleeping bush baby and spirit
Speaker 1: and pull it back out to eat.
Speaker 2: There's so many surprising little little cases of tool uisu
Speaker 2: pro to tool used to behavior in chimpanzees like this.
Speaker 1: Now, this this paper basically comes down to two hypotheses
Speaker 1: about why the chimps do this. The first, and I
Speaker 1: think the main hypothesis, is that they accumulate stone throwing
Speaker 1: behavior as a modification of male chimpanzee display. This would
Speaker 1: make it mean that it would be kind of like
Speaker 1: an addition to their hand and foot drumming, which is
Speaker 1: a ritualized behavior found in all known chimpanzee populations, and
Speaker 1: the use of the stones, throwing the stones into a pile,
Speaker 1: into the hall of a tree, et cetera, would be
Speaker 1: a way of enhancing this particular activity.
Speaker 2: That's oh yeah, so like hitting a pile of stones
Speaker 2: with a stone would probably make a louder sound than
Speaker 2: just throwing a stone off into the dirt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I would not feel comfortable going
Speaker 1: as far to say that they're making music, though I
Speaker 1: think I saw some headlines that were going in that direction.
Speaker 1: They also say that the second area to consider this, say,
Speaker 1: they could also not be male drumming. But if it's
Speaker 1: not that, it would mean that it quote may need
Speaker 1: to be considered in a more symbolic context. And I
Speaker 1: think this is where things would get a little foggy.
Speaker 1: You're a little potentially more nebulous, because you're getting in
Speaker 1: to this area where there is a connection between quote
Speaker 1: ritualized animal behavior and the repeated stereotype behaviors commonly observed
Speaker 1: during human rituals unquote, which granted that could cover a
Speaker 1: great deal of ground.
Speaker 2: This is what I was alluding to earlier. I mean,
Speaker 2: it seems like an interesting possibility, but I think i'd
Speaker 2: need more evidence that that's really the right way to
Speaker 2: think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I think that's basically what the
Speaker 1: authors here were leaning towards. Like It's like, if it's
Speaker 1: not just part of the hand and foot drumming of
Speaker 1: the male chimps, then it's something else, and that's something
Speaker 1: else will require more research and more observation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but a really interesting behavior either way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing they'd point out is that it
Speaker 1: could have some great importance not only for our understanding
Speaker 1: of how chimps behave, but also archaeologically when we find
Speaker 1: piles of stones and things that, again we can often
Speaker 1: easily associate with human intention, it could be something else.
Speaker 1: It could be chimps in a or you know, some
Speaker 1: other human ancestor engaging in some sort of display that
Speaker 1: involves accumulating throwing rocks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well it forces us to be humble about interpreting
Speaker 2: archaeological evidence, because I think we tend to always want
Speaker 2: to say, oh, if we find a non natural assemblage
Speaker 2: of stones or something like that, you assume it must
Speaker 2: have an almost kind of like industrial purpose. You know,
Speaker 2: it's used for direct survival benefit. Maybe in the manufacture
Speaker 2: of tools or something like that, which which of course
Speaker 2: could be possible. Or the other side is people tend
Speaker 2: to jump to religion you say is ritual use. But
Speaker 2: then there are these cases that we observe in non
Speaker 2: human primates today where it's like, it's not even clear
Speaker 2: what this is for. Yeah, but I wanted to now
Speaker 2: address the topic of the evolution of throwing in humans
Speaker 2: because to the extent that animals throw, and we know
Speaker 2: from everything we've looked at in these episodes that many,
Speaker 2: many non human animals do throw, they don't throw like
Speaker 2: we do. No animal out there comes anywhere close to
Speaker 2: the combined levels of force and target precision that humans
Speaker 2: are capable of. And to further explore this, I was
Speaker 2: looking at an interesting paper by Michael P. Lombardo and
Speaker 2: robert O. Diener published in the Quarterly Review of Biology
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen called Born to Throw The Ecological Causes
Speaker 2: that shaped the Evolution of Throwing in Humans. Now, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to address all the subtopics in this paper,
Speaker 2: but wanted to pull out some highlights that I found
Speaker 2: really interesting. So the authors begin by identifying two major
Speaker 2: turning points in the relationship between human anatomy and human
Speaker 2: behavior that sort of drove the evolution of the modern
Speaker 2: human body. And they identified the shift to bipedal locomotion
Speaker 2: that of course is well known, but also the development
Speaker 2: of forceful overhand throwing, and they argue that the former
Speaker 2: has gotten a lot more at tension than the latter,
Speaker 2: but the latter might be considered equally important, if not
Speaker 2: more so. There are other animals that throw in various scenarios,
Speaker 2: as we've documented, but humans are the only primates that
Speaker 2: can be observed to regularly throw targeted projectiles in order
Speaker 2: to kill or cause injury to another animal. And I
Speaker 2: think also it's worth noticing not only how much better
Speaker 2: we are throwing than other animals, but how this is
Speaker 2: pretty much the only feat of physical strength. They're one
Speaker 2: of the only feats of physical strength where we surpass
Speaker 2: our closest primate relatives. So compared to other primates like
Speaker 2: chimpanzees and gorillas, humans are incredibly weak. The authors cite
Speaker 2: some research it's older research from nineteen twenty six, attempting
Speaker 2: to quantify the difference between the you know, like the
Speaker 2: arm strength of a chimpanzee versus an adult human and this.
Speaker 2: This older study concludes that, controlling for body size, an
Speaker 2: adult male chimpanzee is on average roughly four times stronger
Speaker 2: than a fit adult human male. Now this is probably
Speaker 2: a very approximate guess, but I think it is utterly
Speaker 2: uncontroversial to say that chimps are way way stronger than humans.
Speaker 2: A chimpanzee could probably just rip your head off.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I've seen some images of I've had.
Speaker 1: I can't recall if it was a hairless gorilla or
Speaker 1: a hairless chimpanzee, but it allows you to really see
Speaker 1: the muscle definition, and it was terrifying how ripped this
Speaker 1: creature was.
Speaker 2: However, despite being several times stronger than a human on average,
Speaker 2: in a general sense, their muscles are just stronger. A
Speaker 2: chimpanzee is several times weaker than even an adolescent human
Speaker 2: when it comes to forceful overhand throwing. And I was
Speaker 2: looking to try to find this comparison quantified. I did
Speaker 2: find it in the work of a Harvard researcher named
Speaker 2: Neil Thomas Roach, who studies the evolution of high speed throwing.
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to some research he was
Speaker 2: involved in a minute, but just quickly here, Roach cites
Speaker 2: figures that even an adult male chimpanzee who has specifically
Speaker 2: been trained to throw a ball, So this is not
Speaker 2: just a naive chimpanzee who's never done this before. This
Speaker 2: is one who has humans have trained them to throw
Speaker 2: as hard as they can. One who has been trained
Speaker 2: can only achieve top throwing speeds of about twenty miles
Speaker 2: per hour, whereas among humans, twelve to thirteen year old
Speaker 2: recreational baseball pictures can achieve pitches above sixty miles per hour,
Speaker 2: and professional adult baseball players can throw fastballs in the
Speaker 2: like ninety to one hundred mile per hour range. So
Speaker 2: isn't that bizarre. A chimpanzee might be simultaneously three or
Speaker 2: four times stronger than you in general, but you are
Speaker 2: probably right now at least three times stronger than the
Speaker 2: chimp when it comes to throwing.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a massive blow too. Any chimpanzee playing baseball
Speaker 1: movies out there or basketball movies like it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like Chimp Rookie of the Year, that movie
Speaker 2: that's based on a false premise. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: this makes more sense the more you think about the
Speaker 2: act of throwing in granular detail. So throwing comes so
Speaker 2: naturally and so easily to us as a species, it
Speaker 2: takes real, deliberate effort to understand what an extremely difficult
Speaker 2: and complex behavior, forceful targeted throwing is. It requires split
Speaker 2: second mental calculations regarding force, angle, and timing, as well
Speaker 2: as coordination of lots of precise and rapid movements by
Speaker 2: many different parts of the body. So think about all
Speaker 2: this stuff. Think about everything your muscles and your brain
Speaker 2: have to do together to throw a rock and hit something,
Speaker 2: especially if the thing is moving. You have to track
Speaker 2: the target, anticipate future motion of the target, take into
Speaker 2: account the physical features of the projectile, for example, like
Speaker 2: its weight and its shape and so forth, which will
Speaker 2: affect how it travels. You have to understand the object
Speaker 2: you're throwing to throw it effectively. You have to understand
Speaker 2: how exactly to draw back and extend the arm for
Speaker 2: the throw, how to grip the object in preparation for
Speaker 2: the throw, exactly how and when to release the projectile
Speaker 2: from the grip. And that's like a you know, tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny window, and you have to time all of those
Speaker 2: muscular movements in exactly the right sequence, which might all
Speaker 2: take place in less than a second. Throwing behaviors are
Speaker 2: one of the fastest motions produced by the musculoskeletal system
Speaker 2: of the human body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which makes it all the more depressing when you
Speaker 1: throw a cat toy and the cat doesn't chase after
Speaker 1: it and doesn't take the crass, like did you not
Speaker 1: see what I just did? But in the case of
Speaker 1: throwing a cat toy, you know, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: actually make the toy go anywhere specific. But if I'm
Speaker 1: say bowling, which I guess I don't know if you
Speaker 1: would call bowling throwing, I.
Speaker 2: Guess it's sort of like I think it counts.
Speaker 1: But when I'm doing that, that's one of those rare
Speaker 1: instances is where I'll occasionally stop and think and try
Speaker 1: and sort of focus on what all I'm doing to
Speaker 1: carry out this physical act. And yet it's, like you said,
Speaker 1: there's so many things going on that we don't even
Speaker 1: really have conscious control of, or not privy to, or
Speaker 1: and if we think too much about it, we're just
Speaker 1: going to drop it on our toe. Anyway. It's really
Speaker 1: quite amazing.
Speaker 2: That's another interesting aspect of throwing that I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people can attest. From their own experience. When
Speaker 2: you think too much about throwing, you tend to get
Speaker 2: worse at it. Isn't that strange like this, You tend
Speaker 2: to throw more accurately when you kind of turn off
Speaker 2: your analytical brain and just let your intuitions take over.
Speaker 2: So anyway, that we are so much better adapted for
Speaker 2: targeted overhand throwing than other primates, even our most closely
Speaker 2: related primates like chimpanzees, suggests specific selection pressure on our ancestors,
Speaker 2: favoring the development of skeleton, muscular, as well as neurological
Speaker 2: adaptations that allow us to excel at throwing to the
Speaker 2: extent that we do. We seem quite clearly biologically shaped
Speaker 2: for throwing, and that requires changes in multiple parts of
Speaker 2: the body, the muscles and the skeleton of like the
Speaker 2: arm and the shoulder and the torso, but also the
Speaker 2: brain and the nervous system. Now, lest you think, I
Speaker 2: don't know how useful in real world struggle could throwing be.
Speaker 2: I think this is uncontroversial. But the authors do spend
Speaker 2: a fair amount of time just providing evidence that they do.
Speaker 2: Observations of pre modern practices in hunting and warfare to
Speaker 2: show the prevalence and utility of targeted overhand throwing. They're like, yes,
Speaker 2: it's incredibly useful. They say that human quote, hunters and
Speaker 2: warriors used human muscle power to propel bolas, boomerangs, darts, knives, sticks, stones,
Speaker 2: and spears thrown with or without the aid of oddo lattles.
Speaker 2: If you're interested in the oddo loattle. By the way,
Speaker 2: we did an episode of invention on that a long
Speaker 2: time ago that I think was one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: I remember that being really interesting. Anyway, many of the
Speaker 2: technologies that replaced these practices in hunting and warfare have
Speaker 2: simply replaced the muscular power with mechanical or chemical sources
Speaker 2: of energy to power the throw, and that can be
Speaker 2: everything from the tension of a bow string to the
Speaker 2: combustion of gunpowder in a firearm. So the question is
Speaker 2: how did our hominin ancestors make the leap from something
Speaker 2: like the occasional low specialization, low utility tossing behaviors we
Speaker 2: see in our closest primate relatives like chimpanzees, to the
Speaker 2: kind of habitual, powerful, targeted overhand throwing that is characteristic
Speaker 2: of humans today. Now, like many questions in evolutionary anthropology.
Speaker 2: We don't know the answer to this one for sure.
Speaker 2: This is not one where somebody can tell you the answer,
Speaker 2: but there are a few hypotheses that are informed by
Speaker 2: some interesting evidence that we can take a look at. Now,
Speaker 2: before we can figure out how that advance from sort
Speaker 2: of occasional, low utility throwing to human style throwing might
Speaker 2: have occurred, it's worth discussing the major hypothesized uses of
Speaker 2: overhand throwing in an ancestral hominine environment. Hunting is a
Speaker 2: very obvious one, right, Being able to throw a rock
Speaker 2: or a stick with force and hit a prey animal
Speaker 2: would be extremely useful, But the authors also call out
Speaker 2: intra specific and agonistic encounters, which means conflict with other
Speaker 2: members of the same species. And then, finally, I thought
Speaker 2: this one was really fascinating, and this one may help
Speaker 2: explain and help you see how this bridge could have
Speaker 2: been crossed behaviorally, the practice of power scavenging, which means
Speaker 2: not just regular scavenging, not just wandering around looking for
Speaker 2: a dead animal to feast upon. Power scavenging means waiting
Speaker 2: for other predators to take down a prey animal and
Speaker 2: then chasing those predators away. From the kill and taking
Speaker 2: it for yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There was a fabulous BBC documentary several years back
Speaker 1: titled Human Planet that was narrated by John Hurt, and
Speaker 1: it had to do with various human practices of often
Speaker 1: hunting or scavenging that have been practiced to some degree
Speaker 1: into the modern age, and one of them involved stealing
Speaker 1: part of the kill from a lion, which would be
Speaker 1: an example of power scavenging something where you want to
Speaker 1: get in there like that the lion has done the
Speaker 1: I guess the hard part and has brought down prey,
Speaker 1: but now you're going to do an also hard thing.
Speaker 1: You want to get in there, drive the predator away
Speaker 1: long enough to get yourself a little bit of the
Speaker 1: meat as well.
Speaker 2: Right. So, for this hypothesis, the authors cite a work
Speaker 2: by Bingham and Susa from two thousand and nine which
Speaker 2: makes the case that during the time of transition from
Speaker 2: Australiopithesenes to the emergence of the Homo genus to which
Speaker 2: we belong, climate conditions in Africa may have given rise
Speaker 2: to these little, isolated savannah environments containing hominins, but these
Speaker 2: environments also quote lacked dangerous predators and power scavengers like
Speaker 2: lions and hyenas, but contained smaller and less dangerous predators
Speaker 2: such as leopards and cheetahs. So if that's correct, it's
Speaker 2: it's maybe easy to imagine how with leopards and cheetahs
Speaker 2: you could more more plausibly chase them away, or early
Speaker 2: hominins could have chased them away from a kill by
Speaker 2: throwing things at them, even without very specialized weapons, maybe
Speaker 2: just by like throwing rocks or unmodified sticks. And this
Speaker 2: could be thought of as a kind of high risk,
Speaker 2: high reward strategy. Like with power scavenging. You can get
Speaker 2: a big meat payday with relatively little energy investment since
Speaker 2: you don't have to chase the prey animal down yourself.
Speaker 2: But it's dangerous. You do have to confront one or
Speaker 2: more predators for the kill, and this type of strategy
Speaker 2: might not be worth the risk if you have to
Speaker 2: fight a leopard with your hands or with handheld weapons.
Speaker 2: But if you can just throw rocks at it from
Speaker 2: a distance until it runs away, that could be a
Speaker 2: really good deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again not necessarily drive it off completely, but
Speaker 1: just create an opening during which you can carry out
Speaker 1: some power scavenging and then get out of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now another question to look at is what is
Speaker 2: the earliest we have, like totally clear physical evidence to
Speaker 2: establish the use of thrown projectiles by humans. The author's
Speaker 2: write quote unambiguous archaeological evidence of the use of modified
Speaker 2: throwing weapons manufactured by members of the genus Homo. Are
Speaker 2: these stone spear points manufactured approximately three hundred thousand years
Speaker 2: ago in Africa. Hunting spears with their center of gravity
Speaker 2: one third of the way from the tip, suggesting that
Speaker 2: they were thrown were found in Germany and date from
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand years ago. These
Speaker 2: two examples are evidence that manufactured weapons were thrown by
Speaker 2: members of the Homo genus at least three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: years ago. But while it's harder to be certain about
Speaker 2: what happened before that, the authors infer that human ancestors
Speaker 2: were probably throwing sticks and rocks going back a couple
Speaker 2: million years, so there was probably use of throwing of
Speaker 2: less modified or unmodified objects from the environment before. We
Speaker 2: have evidence of these modified throwing weapons from like three
Speaker 2: hundred to four hundred thousand years ago, And one idea
Speaker 2: I came across in trying to locate the origins of
Speaker 2: habitual forceful throwing is based on studies of anatomy, and
Speaker 2: this brings us back to that researcher I talked about
Speaker 2: a minute ago, the anthropologist Neil Thomas Roach, who along
Speaker 2: with some colleagues studied the bodies and behavior of practiced
Speaker 2: human throwers like baseball pitchers. And let's see the citation
Speaker 2: here is Roach vinca deson Rainbow and Lieberman from twenty
Speaker 2: thirteen published in the journal Nature, and the paper title
Speaker 2: is Elastic Energy Storage in the Shoulder and the Evolution
Speaker 2: of high speed Throwing in Homo And basically, these authors
Speaker 2: contend that the anatomical difference that makes human so good
Speaker 2: at throwing is our ability to store elastic energy in
Speaker 2: our shoulders. So it's not just like the strength of
Speaker 2: the muscles, but the fact that the human body is
Speaker 2: designed to sort of cock back the arm before a
Speaker 2: forceful throw, and a human essentially creates a biomechanical sling
Speaker 2: shot by stretching the tendons and the ligaments surrounding the
Speaker 2: scapula or the shoulder blade, and this tension could be
Speaker 2: thought of as analogous to the tension in a bowstring.
Speaker 2: It allows very rapid extension of the arm after the
Speaker 2: wind up. Now how come we can do this and
Speaker 2: our nearest relatives like chimpanzees cannot. The researchers here argued
Speaker 2: that there are basically three important anatomical changes that are
Speaker 2: found altogether around two million years ago in the species
Speaker 2: Homo erectus. So these three changes are the expansion of
Speaker 2: the waist and this sort of lets the torso rotate
Speaker 2: above the hips, which generates more rotational force. So when
Speaker 2: you're like cocking your arm back to throw overhand, you
Speaker 2: typically you twist your torso, and that change in Homo
Speaker 2: erectus allowed them to twist their torso like that. The
Speaker 2: second is a lower positioning of the shoulders on the torso,
Speaker 2: and this changes the orientation of the muscles around the shoulder,
Speaker 2: again helping us to store more energy in the wind
Speaker 2: up of an overhand throw. Again, this is found in homoerectus.
Speaker 2: And then the twisting of the humorous bone, which is
Speaker 2: the upper arm bone, and that twisting is yet another
Speaker 2: way to stretch the bow strings, storing up even more
Speaker 2: energy in the wind up. And you can see these differences,
Speaker 2: there's a diagram. They include you might be able to
Speaker 2: look up for yourself if you see a comparison of
Speaker 2: like a muscle diagram or the scapula of a chimpanzee
Speaker 2: and a human, and you can see some of these differences,
Speaker 2: particularly the lower position of the shoulder on the human body.
Speaker 2: You know, you look at the upper musculature of a
Speaker 2: chimpanzee and you're like, well, I really would not want
Speaker 2: to be clubbed by this animal, And I imagine that
Speaker 2: animal can really like climb a tree really well. But
Speaker 2: there's there's some kind of different twisting of the shoulder
Speaker 2: and the pectoral muscle in the human body that apparently
Speaker 2: allows us to perform this cockingback or wind up behavior
Speaker 2: before an overhand throw so much better than a chimp can.
Speaker 1: This also means, according to the cillustration, the chimpanzee nipple
Speaker 1: is also just a little bit higher, It's true, portly comparatively.
Speaker 2: So. Roach and colleagues argue that these anatomical changes that
Speaker 2: favor throwing coincide with archaeological evidence showing increased hunting activity
Speaker 2: in these hominins, so like more processed animal bones at
Speaker 2: occupied sites, stone tool work, and so forth. So that
Speaker 2: would make a link between these anatomical changes that favor
Speaker 2: the ability to throw, and what human ancestors were eating.
Speaker 2: The homoerectus was apparently dining on more meat. Now, coming
Speaker 2: back to that paper by Lombardo and Deaner from twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: they examine a number of other different things, like talking
Speaker 2: about the prevalence and effectiveness of overhand throwing in warfare
Speaker 2: and hunting, and they also look at things like sex
Speaker 2: differences in throwing behavior. For example, in chimpanzees, there's some
Speaker 2: evidence that male chimpanzees tend to throw more and relative
Speaker 2: levels of lethality and targeted throwing behaviors and so forth.
Speaker 2: But to come to the conclusion regarding that transition, like
Speaker 2: how did the leap happen from you know, sort of occasional,
Speaker 2: non specialized throwing like we see in chimpanzees today to
Speaker 2: the habitual, targeted, forceful overhand throwing that humans can do.
Speaker 2: The conclusion, they argue, is that this adaptation grew out
Speaker 2: of quote a way for throwers to manipulate the behavior
Speaker 2: of targeted individuals during intraspecific agonistic interactions and then later
Speaker 2: transitioned into use during power scavenging and hunting by hominins,
Speaker 2: perhaps in the australiopithesceenes. So why do they think it
Speaker 2: started with manipulating the behavior of other hominins within the
Speaker 2: same species and agonistic interactions. Well, I think we can
Speaker 2: get some clues by looking at our closest primate relatives. Again,
Speaker 2: this in no way clinches the argument. We don't know
Speaker 2: for sure, but it's an interesting line of evidence. So
Speaker 2: they say, if you look at our relatives like chimpanzees, bonobos,
Speaker 2: gorillas and so forth, these animals have all been observed throwing.
Speaker 2: But when and how do they throw? Well, do they
Speaker 2: throw to hunt? The answer there seems like either no
Speaker 2: or almost never. There are almost no claimed observations that
Speaker 2: any of these animals use projectiles for hunting, with basically
Speaker 2: one possible exception, and that's a report by Jane Goodall
Speaker 2: actually in nineteen eighty six, where to read from the
Speaker 2: paper here quote Goodall reported three observations of throwing by
Speaker 2: hunting chimpanzees. In two instances, stones thrown by an adult
Speaker 2: male may have been intended to cause the prey adult
Speaker 2: bush pigs to run rather than to harm them. In
Speaker 2: another instance, six male chimpanzees hunting baboons threw stones at
Speaker 2: male baboons that were attacking the hunters. None of these
Speaker 2: accounts closely resembles the highly skilled aimed throwing used by
Speaker 2: human hunters, so even if these instances count, they appear
Speaker 2: to be somewhat ambiguous and relatively unique. There are basically
Speaker 2: no other reports of apes throwing to hunt, and instead
Speaker 2: apes and monkeys seem to use throwing as part of
Speaker 2: communication behavior during encounters with other members of the same
Speaker 2: species or sometimes with other animals such as humans. Most
Speaker 2: often it's used for agonistic interactions, a kind of threat
Speaker 2: display that you might throw rocks or sticks at another
Speaker 2: member of the same ape species or another animal to
Speaker 2: sort of drive them away or intimidate them. So if
Speaker 2: a chimpanzee is trying to display dominance or intimidate another one,
Speaker 2: or trying to get an interloper away from the group,
Speaker 2: throwing rocks and sticks is a common behavior there, but
Speaker 2: it's also not just aggressive interactions those are the most common.
Speaker 2: There are, also, in fewer cases, more benign examples, like
Speaker 2: particularly in bonobos and some monkeys, where throwing can be
Speaker 2: a bid to initiate play or some other type of
Speaker 2: non threatening communication.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of pebbles on the winddill again here.
Speaker 2: So for the most part, it seems chimps don't really
Speaker 2: hunt or power scavenge by throwing. They throw most often
Speaker 2: as a threatening display toward other chimps or to communicate
Speaker 2: in some way. But you can see how this behavior
Speaker 2: could bridge over into power scavenging if you're generally throwing
Speaker 2: to threaten, so you know, it starts off with agonistic interactions,
Speaker 2: and then maybe sometimes you throw to threaten a predator
Speaker 2: that is there with a kill, and instead you drive
Speaker 2: the predator away and you take the meat. This creates
Speaker 2: an association between throwing to threaten and a meat reward
Speaker 2: that could increasingly lead to throwing to hunt directly, especially
Speaker 2: if you were able to create modified projectiles such as spears.
Speaker 2: So it makes me wonder like if those specific chimpanzees
Speaker 2: observed by Jane Goodall, if they were in fact using
Speaker 2: rocks to hunt or aid in hunting in some way.
Speaker 2: You kind of have to wonder if maybe they're on
Speaker 2: the bleeding edge of chimp technology in some way like
Speaker 2: the one. Those are the ones who, if left alone
Speaker 2: for a few hundred thousand years, might evolve to select
Speaker 2: anatomical traits that favor throwing, and you know, modify objects
Speaker 2: from their environment to make their throwing more effective.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this fascinating, this sort of you can see
Speaker 1: the links here between, like this sort of growing understanding
Speaker 1: to some degree that being able to throw an object
Speaker 1: at another creature is a way to alter its behavior
Speaker 1: or disrupt its behavior at a distance. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: that potential extra step in realizing that this also can
Speaker 1: harm the animal, and then there are ways to enhance
Speaker 1: the materials so as to increase harm. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: So what do I think about their hypothesis here. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say I'm one hundred percent convinced, but it seems
Speaker 2: very plausible. They make a pretty good case.
Speaker 1: All right, So hopefully this episode will help us, you know, Spook,
Speaker 1: you will help mess you up the next time you
Speaker 1: need to try and throw something with intention and direction,
Speaker 1: maybe in your next softball game, maybe the next time
Speaker 1: you go to beer somebody at an outdoor party. They'll
Speaker 1: just be that moment of doubt where you run through
Speaker 1: the evolutionary history of getting to this point and then
Speaker 1: you miss your target.
Speaker 2: Yep, overthink it and then slice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, we'd love to hear from anyone
Speaker 1: out there if you have any thoughts and feedback related
Speaker 1: to this episode or other episodes in this series about
Speaker 1: humans throwing things, animals throwing things right in we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. And of course we could potentially
Speaker 1: keep going with this topic. So we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: discuss after we wrap this episode and see if we're
Speaker 1: going to part four now or if we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back in the future. I don't know. We don't have
Speaker 1: to tune in Thursday to see what happens. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we'll remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: a science podcast that publishes core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed On Mondays,
Speaker 1: we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a short
Speaker 1: form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays we
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to discuss a weird movie
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you
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Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello. You can
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