Primate Profile: Baboons

Scholars who strive to learn more about human evolution from both the biological and cultural perspective often turn to multiple lines of evidence, including fossil and archaeological evidence and studies of some human groups and nonhuman primates.   The study of behavior patterns of nonhuman primates provides a means of inferring about human ancestor behavior patterns, but the study of primates is not just about making inferences about the past.  Other areas of study are gained through the study of primates, including an understanding of the foundations of culture and clarifying the nature vs. nurture debate.  Today’s blog post is dedicated to informing the public about some of the behavior patterns of one primate species: baboons.

Baboons (Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42013467/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.Uucg1bTTnIU)

 

Baboons live in the Savannah of Africa.  Scholarly evidence demonstrates that baboons, particularly males, have individual identities and differential social power.  Some males have been observed as leaders and some as subordinates, and of the subordinates, there are those who are submissive to females in the group.  Males tend to be leaders of the group, but that is after they have proven themselves as capable leaders as it is the primary responsibility of leaders to protect the group from other baboons (outsiders) and predators (such as lions).  The remaining males fall into a dominance hierarchy in the group.  These groups are based on “networks for social alliances”, which are friends between males and females, males and males, and females and females.  The strength of the friendship defines how far members of that friendship are willing to go for one another.  For example, a male baboon that has a strong friendship with a female baboon that is not his sexual partner may watch over her infant or provides it with food if she is unable to acquire the food herself.  It is hypothesized that these friendship are what aid baboons in finding reproductive partners, but they also must serve as a means of solidifying social bonds within the group.  Differential social positions, or friendships, exist much how they exist in human society as an individual’s experience, skill, manipulation skills, and ability to mobilize others all play a role in how one goes about acquiring friends and partnerships. 

The core of every baboon group is the subgroup of related females.  In baboon societies, males will leave the group and find another in which they can join and of which they can become a reputable citizen.  Females, however, do not leave the group and instead keep propagating the group by being reproductive members of the society with outsiders.  Most tensions in a group revolve around the outsider reproductive males wishing to join the group by courting and eventually impregnating one of the original females of the group.  Males must show their prowess to females in order to be chosen as mates.  The only time a male can act in this way toward females is when females are in estrus, the period in which a female is fertile that is demonstrated through specific biological, such as swelling of genital area.  We also know this process as “going into heat”.    

Through the study of baboons, scholars have gained a better understanding of social structures, particularly family units, for all primates.  Through the study of baboons and other primates, scholars have learned that the social and familial structures present in human groups are not inherent but are very much socially constructed.  

References: 

Feder, Kenneth and Park M. Human Antiquity: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archeology, McGraw-Hill.