The origin of great ape gestural forms

Abstract

Two views claim to account for the origins of great ape gestural forms. On the Leipzig view, gestural forms are ontogenetically ritualised from action sequences between pairs of individuals. On the St Andrews view, gestures are the product of natural selection for shared gestural forms. The Leipzig view predicts within- and between-group differences between gestural forms that arise as a product of learning in ontogeny. The St Andrews view predicts universal gestural forms comprehensible within and between species that arise because gestural forms were a target of natural selection. We reject both accounts and propose an alternative “recruitment view” of the origins of great ape gestures. According to the recruitment view, great ape gestures recruit features of their existing behavioural repertoire for communicative purposes. Their gestures inherit their communicative functions from visual (and sometimes tactile) presentations of familiar and easily recognisable action schemas and states and parts of the body. To the extent that great ape species possess similar bodies, this predicts mutual comprehensibility within and between species – but without supposing that gestural forms were themselves targets of natural selection. Additionally, we locate great ape gestural communication within a pragmatic framework that is continuous with human communication, and make testable predications for adjudicating between the three alternative views. We propose that the recruitment view best explains existing data, and does so within a mechanistic framework that emphasises continuity between human and non-human great ape communication.