BEIJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The first prehistoric evidence of chimpanzee was found in Africa, proving the theory that some of humanity's behavioral hallmarks are actually inherited by both humans and great apes from a common ancestor, according to findings by a team of international researchers appeared in Canadian media Tuesday. 

    Dr. Julio Mercader, a Canada Research Chair in Tropical Archaeology and also one of the few archaeologists in the world who studies the material culture of great apes, especially chimpanzees, uncovered stone hammers last year in Africa's Cote D'Ivoire that date back 4,300 years.

    "It's not clear whether we hominins invented this kind of stone technology, or whether both humans and the great apes inherited it from a common forebear," said Mercader, who reported the findings in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "There weren't any farmers living in this region 4,300 years ago, so it is unlikely that chimpanzees picked it up by imitating villagers, like some scientists used to claim."

    "We used to think that culture and, above anything else, technology was the exclusive domain of humans, but this is not the case," Mercader said.

    The research demonstrates conclusively that the artifacts couldn't have been the result of natural erosion or used by humans. The stones are too large for humans to use easily and they also have the starch residue from several nuts known to be staples in the chimpanzee diet, but not the human diet.

    "Mercader's paper presents strong archaeological data for the antiquity of nut cracking by chimpanzees and shows that this behavior developed long before farmers arrived in the area," said Dr. Michael Chazan, an anthropology professor at University of Toronto who specialized in Paleolithic archaeology.

    (Agencies)