Scientists around the world have confirmed that chimps are catching up to us in intelligence, pretty freaking fast.
Yep, they are firmly in their stone age.
A report from the BBC reveals that archaeologists in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia have been unearthing tools created by our primitive cousins.
Sure, their workmanship is less than impressive. To be fair, the chimpanzee crafted “stone hammer” could easily be mistaken for any other rock if it weren’t for some tiny scuff marks on the tools that revealed its primitive history to the trained archaeologists.
But these monkeys are developing a culture that reporter Collin Barras says “makes use of stone based technology”, using the tools to crack open tough nuts for some time now.
Primate archaeologists have found Chimp stone tools dating back 4300 years, and these skills have evidently been passed down to modern chimpanzee generations.
Chimpanzees are our closest living relative, and their humanity is rearing its head more and more each day. New Zealand and the UK have even granted the monkeys some human rights.
In true throwback Thursday fashion, here’s a history lesson on what us humans did during the stone age. We learnt how to control fire, make pottery, domesticated the dog (greatest feat in history) and rocked the paleo diet.
Although the chimps aren’t up to that kind of evolution yet, their adaptive nature and ability to grow larger brains presents the possibility for further chimp sophistication.
The future is looking a whole lot weirder.
