Prehistory and Primatology: the Tool Behaviour Case in Non-Human Primates

Abstract

Prehistoric archaeology is constructed paradigmatically through a great variety of auxiliary sciences, including Geology,Archaeology, Anthropology or Ethnoarchaeology. However, in the Spanish disciplinary context (and also inthe ‘continental’ European to a great extent) there are several theoretical and practical domains which are not fullyexploited. This is the case of Primatology, a recurrent scientific tool among prehistory researchers in the Anglophoneworld that has been hardly utilized by Spanish prehistorians. In this paper, we try to fill this gap with a synthesis aboutone of the most important behavioural issues of non-human primates, which has a clear connection with Prehistory: tooluse and tool making, i.e. tool behaviour. Proposals concerning how and in which ways the relationship between Prehistoryand Primatology could be profitable exploited through the use of analogy will end this paper.