Chimpanzees are able to communicate with one another through hand gestures, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Georgia State University.
The University's Language Research Center studied how two language-trained chimps were able to communicate with one another through a human experimenter to find food, according to a university press release.
The chimps used hand gestures to coordinate plans to pursue food hidden for the experiment, according to the press release.
Researchers also noted that the chimps would point to guide the human to the location where the food was. The experimenter did not know where the food was before being shown by the chimp to help accomplish accurate results.
"It allows the chimpanzees to communicate information in the manner of their choosing, but also requires them to initiate and to persist in communication," language center researcher Charles Menzel said in a statement according to the press release.
The experiment allowed researchers to study chimps in a way that's never been done before.
The researchers now believe hand gestures could have been an important "building block towards the evolution of language," according to the study.
"This study adds to our understanding of how well chimpanzees can remember and communicate about their environment," Menzel said.
The project was funded by The Leakey Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy, and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the University of Stirling.
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