We hypothesize that juvenile baboons are less efficient foragers than adult baboons owing to their small size, lower level of knowledge and skill, and/or lesser ability to maintain access to resources. We predict that as resources are more difficult to extract, juvenile baboons will demonstrate lower efficiency than adults will because of their lower levels of experience. In addition, we hypothesize that juvenile baboons will be more likely to allocate foraging time to easier-to-extract resources owing to their greater efficiency in (...) acquiring those resources.We use feeding efficiency and time allocation data collected on a wild, free-ranging, non-provisioned population of chacma baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus) in the Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Okavango Delta, Botswana to test these hypotheses. The major findings of this study are:1. Juvenile baboons are significantly less efficient foragers than adult baboons primarily for difficult-to-extract resources.We propose that this age-dependent variation in efficiency is due to differences in memory and other cognitive functions related to locating food resources, as is indicated by the greater amount of time juvenile baboons spend searching for food. There is no evidence that smaller body size or competitive disruption influences the differences in return rates found between adult and juvenile baboons in this study.2. An individual baboon’s feeding efficiency for a given resource can be used to predict the duration of its foraging bouts for that resource.These results contribute both to our understanding of the ontogeny of behavioral development in nonhuman primates, especially regarding foraging ability, and to current debate within the field of human behavioral ecology regarding the evolution of the juvenile period in primates and humans. (shrink)

Infanticide is one of the typical examples used in many general evolutionary hypothesis on vertebrate evolution especially those based on sociobiology. We have shown that this phenomenon is very complicated and in no case can be interpreted as a support for sociobiological ideas. It is not so common a phenomenon in the primate societies as sociologists claim, and even in the “typical” primate species as anhuman langurs, has a very limited and different meaning. Furthermore, there are a lot of examples (...) where many sociobiological hypothesis are based on very superficial and overgeneralized interpretations of nonhuman primate infanticide. In human populations infanticide is usually connected with the cases when the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is no longer sufficient for the survival of a population. It is a conscious action based on longterm empirical knowledge. No negative emotions of even aggressiveness connected with infanticide is know in human groups. We try to demonstrate that the research of primate infanticide gives no consistent basis for its generalization in the framework of sociobiological hypothesis and in evolutionary theories in general. (shrink)

This essay considers the use of mapping and mapping technologies for the benefit of those who study the work and life of Giovanni Boccaccio.

This is a new translation of and commentary on Pico della Mirandola's most famous work, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. It is the first English edition to provide readers with substantial notes on the text, essays that address the work's historical, philosophical and theological context, and a survey of its reception. Often called the 'Manifesto of the Renaissance', this brief but complex text was originally composed in 1486 as the inaugural speech for an assembly of intellectuals, which could (...) have produced one of the most exhaustive metaphysical, theological and psychological debates in history, had Pope Innocent VIII not forbidden it. This edition of the Oration reflects the spirit of the original text in bringing together experts in different fields. Not unlike the debate Pico optimistically anticipated, the resulting work is superior to the sum of its parts. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 3, March 2022.

Boehm reasons that human morality began when several heads of households formed a coalition to limit the despotic bullying of an alpha male. The logic is clear and the argument is persuasive. The premises require that: dominant individuals behave like chimpanzees, bullying their subordinates, early humans somehow developed one-male units from a chimpanzee like society and, the power of a despot is limited by group consensus and political activities. Not all alpha males behave like chimpanzees; most primate societies show little (...) evidence of bullying. One-male units are formed by some monkeys but there is little evidence of such tendencies in chimpanzees and bonobos. Hamadryas males do not compete with familiar males for females or possessions regardless of their dominance relationships, but this inhibition is not based on group consensus or coalitions repressing alpha males. Boehm's argument is, nonetheless, possible and plausible but cannot be empirically tested. (shrink)