Cabrillo College

Anthropology

Sustainability

Students Only: Password Protected (class materials)

Contact me if you want to talk about my interests or projects.

Ph.D Dissertation:
ORANGUTAN CULTURES?
Tool Use, Social Transmission and Population Differences

(note: All material copyright 2004, 2008 Michelle Y. Merrill. All rights reserved.)

Entire Dissertation for Download (Winzip 1MB)

PDF By Section:

ORANGUTAN CULTURES?
Tool Use, Social Transmission and Population Differences

Front Matter (Title Pages, Abstract, Dedication, Table of Contents, List of Tables, List of Figures, Acknowledgments)

Ch. 1 Introduction to Orangutan Cultures

Text | Table

Ch. 2 The Content of Orangutan Cultures

Text | Tables | Figures

Ch. 3 Social Proximity in the Orangutans of Suaq Balimbing and Ketambe

Text | Tables | Figures

Ch. 4 Orangutan Nest-Building Behaviors

Text | Tables | Figures

Ch. 5 Rehabilitant Orangutans and Their Descendants at Ketambe: The Role of Social Learning in Intra-population Differences

Text | Tables | Figures

Ch. 6 Discussion and Conclusions about Orangutan Cultures

Text | Table

References

Biography

---

Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) Download a 2MB video of an orangutan at Suaq Balimbing making and using a feeding tool. Read or listen to a recent NPR Radio Expidition to Leuser Ecosystem (where I worked) and learn about the orangutan conservation work of my friend Dr. Ian Singleton, and the earlier report about the orangutan cultures work I and my colleagues reported in the journal Science.

Previous Projects

Tool use by orangutans and other non-human primates. Download a 2MB video of an orangutan at Suaq Balimbing making and using a feeding tool, or see a Windows Media file of orangutans.

The origins of culture, social transmission of information, and interpopulation variation in the great apes. You can listen to a report about the orangutan cultures work I and my colleagues reported in the journal Science, or read about cultural variation in the chimpanzee.

Field studies of orangutans in Indonesia. Click here to see more about the Suaq Balimbing Research Station.

I completed my Ph.D. in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy at Duke University.

Contact me if you want to talk about my interests or projects.

Links to information on primates and evolutionary biology.

Anthropology

Sustainability

Cabrillo College

Students Only: Password Protected (class materials)

 

---

Last modified 16-Apr-2008

Die, spider