After being ignored for more than 40 years, a significant portion of the largest dataset of audio recordings from chimpanzees in the wild has been archived, digitized and stored.
The recordings of immature chimpanzees were taken between 1971 and 1973 but were ignored until a team began the process of digitizing the data. Anne Pusey, chair of the evolutionary anthropology department, was involved in digitizing the recordings and is now looking for researchers to analyze the collection. She believes that the recordings can give insight into vocal systems and the development of language skills.
“Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest relatives,” Pusey said. “I hope that someone who is interested in vocal systems can use the data.”
This set of recordings were collected by Hetty van de Rijt-Plooij and Frans X. Plooij at Gombe National Park in Tanzania while working with chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall. Pusey was a student working on her dissertation in Gombe at the time. When Goodall turned to activism, she didn't have the time to archive and analyze the records, she said.
In 2003, during a reunion in France, the team which collected the recordings decided to begin the process of preserving the data by digitizing it so that it would be available to all researchers interested in using it. The collection which has been archived contains 1,136 recordings from infant, juvenile and adolescent chimps which were gathered over two years.
Martha Fischer, a terrestrial audio archivist who works with the Cornell House of Ornithology helped transfer the data from analog to digital format and then archive it in the online Macaulay Library. Pusey added that a large number of field notes collected by van de Rijt-Plooij were translated from Dutch and digitized during the archiving process. The tapes had suffered some damage due to oxidization over the long period during which they were stored, but the recordings were still clear, Fischer said. She added that the next phase of the archiving process is still ongoing.
“We are still continuing the project with the adult group of chimpanzees” Fischer said.
The recordings would potentially allow researchers to see how children acquire language. Pusey said that there are no other collections of chimpanzee recordings which follow the same animals over such a large timespan. This will allow researchers to analyze longitudinal data on language development. When analyzed, the data could play a large role in studying chimpanzee vocalizations.
“These are extremely rare recordings of a species that are our closest living relatives,” said Dr. Susan Alberts, professor of biology and evolutionary anthropology.
Alberts added that the recordings are valuable because the endangered status of chimpanzees makes recordings of this type rare. The data may not be directly applicable to research into human development, Alberts said. Scientists can, however, potentially use the recordings to piece together behavioral data that may eventually guide human research.
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