Jill Pruetz Almost Human Summary

It is truly a magnificent day for the scientific community, particularly biologists who study the field of evolution. It was first described in the article “Almost Human” in the National Geographic magazine. In the savannah of Northern Africa between eastern Senegal and western Mali scientist Jill Pruetz has observed and recorded nature’s wonder of evolution in a pack of Fongoli Chimpanzees. Ordinarily, you would imagine Chimpanzee swinging around in the high canopy’s of a forest where they would go to sleep and hunt. However, in the Savanah of Northern Africa these chimps have been forced to adapt to a very different environment, one similar to the one believed early humans adapted in. Here there is almost no canopy and the Chimpanzees spend much of their day on the ground. Combine the lack of a natural habitat and competition with each other for food gives you the perfect recipe to sit back and watch the evolutionary process unfold. …show more content…
This actually helped advance the evolutionary process for their species. Forcing the weaker ones and females to compete for food has forced others to develop alternative ways to hunt. National Geographic’s article states “In 2007 Jill Pruetz, an anthropologist at Iowa State University, reported that a Fongoli female chimp named Tumbo was seen two years earlier, less than a mile from where we are right now, sharpening a branch with her teeth and wielding it like a spear. She used it to stab at a bush baby—a pocket-size, tree-dwelling nocturnal primate that springs from branch to branch like a grasshopper.” From the necessity of food chimps have begun to advance to the evolutionary stage of using