Humans Are Not The Only Animals With Culture

19 days ago

We all have culture as humans and while it can differ from one people to another, we cannot deny the fact that we have it. When we mention culture, we are looking at habits, information, and behaviors that we believe and share amongst ourselves socially which can be learned, remembered, and shared amongst ourselves and generations unborn.

We used to think we were the only organisms that had culture and preserved it not until in the 1950s when we discovered that Japanese Macaque Monkeys also had an understanding of culture as one of the monkeys grabs a sweet potato and washed it before eating it. After this was done, the monkeys close to the first monkey's social network started to wash their sweet potatoes and it wasn't long before all the monkeys on the Island began to wash their Sweet potatoes which was done by only the Japanese Macaque Monkeys before.

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We can say that since monkeys and chimpanzees are our close relatives, then it is easy for them to learn, teach, and transfer these cultural knowledge to one another but since the 1950s, scientists have seen and added more animals that aren't our close relatives to the culture list. An example of animals that have been added to this list is the elephant.

Elephants live in a matriarchal society, and so they are led by females. When a male elephant is 12 years old, it is pushed out of the society and this has become a societal culture for them. As humans, we learn by so many ways including trial by error but if this was the same for all the animals, there will be fewer animals in our world because they would have consumed toxic plants which would have led to their death. Animals like elephants and so many other ones learn using social learning since individual learning would mean learning by oneself while social learning from a group of people with wealth of knowledge from generations even before they were born.

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Just like we humans have learned how to do so many social activities including mourning the loss of loved ones, so as numerous animals learn the same thing from elephants to lions, monkeys, giraffes, dolphins, and so on. Just like with us, culture doesn't just tell animals where to live, it tells them how to survive where they live thereby influencing survival. In the bid to survive, dolphins share with themselves tool use and foraging behavior, some animals like humpback whales share songs with one another.

Leaving animals that walk and live in water, we have also found culture in birds like the White-crowned sparrow which sings a lot to mark territory and show that they are ready for mating or are a better mate but this birds weren't born knowing how to sing, rather they practice to sing and they have to learn very fast in their young age from their parent or other birds around them. When these birds hear another bird song in their territory, they go to check and retain dominance in their territory and reclaim it. Also, the with increase in the population and noise from humans, the birds began to increase their pitches so they can be heard among themselves but birds that stay in quiet regions still have their cool sounds without increase in pitches.

Just as humans have cultures, animals like birds, dolphins, and elephants have cultures and we can all share this culture with ourselves and our children. Our culture affects our objective reality just like it does with animals and this