--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
>
> > CB: Chimps don't have kinship. They do not trace
> > living relationships based
> > on descent from dead ancestors.
>
> Chris: That's not the same thing as kinship.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Yes it is.
>
Define "kinship," and why it is important for the question of whether chimps have culture or not. Do chimps recognize their relatives and establish bonds with them different than with other chimps? Obviously since they don't have language their social world is limited to living memory (caveat -- see below), but that's not the same thing. I don't see what this has to do with culture anyway.
And though they didn't come up with it on their own, they can be taught sign language and thus are at least capable of using symbols (didn't Koko, OK she wasn't a chimp but a gorilla, teach it to her children?). They will point and draw for fun if given the opportunity.
Jerry will probably correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC dolphins do use symbols in their communication system. They reproduce the sonar "images" of the things they are "talking" about, e.g., "shark" is represented by the sonar image of a shark. Caveat -- this is something I read years ago and barely remember, so I could be full of shit.
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