Life and Death in the Gombe Chimpanzees

This book addresses how skeletons can inform us about behavior by describing skeletal lesions in the Gombe chimpanzees, relating them to known life histories whenever possible, and analyzing demographic patterns in the sample. This is of particular interest to both primatologists and skeletal analysts who have benefited from published data on a smaller, earlier skeletal sample from Gombe.

The Gombe skeletal collection is the largest collection of wild chimpanzees with known life histories in existence, and this work significantly expands the skeletal sample from this long-term research site (49 chimpanzees). The book explores topics of general interest to skeletal analysts such as demographic patterns, which injuries leave signs on the skeleton, and rates of healing, and discusses both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the patterning of lesions.

The book presents the data in a narrative style similar to that employed in Dr. Goodall's seminal workThe Chimpanzees of Gombe. Readers already familiar with the Gombe chimpanzees are likely to appreciate summaries of life events correlated to observable skeletal features. The book is especially relevant at this time to remind primate conservationists of the importance of the isolated chimpanzee population at Gombe National Park as well as the availability of the skeletons for study, both within the park itself as well as at the University of Minnesota.

Auteur
Dr. Kirchhoff is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she graduated from the Milwaukee Public School system. She then continued her education at the University of Minnesota, where she earned her BA, MA, and PhD from the Department of Anthropology. Her first faculty position was at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, where she was privileged to serve thousands of wonderful students over the course of six years. Dr. Kirchhoff now teaches human gross anatomy at Marquette University and continues to undertake scholarship on primate skeletal analysis. She lives on the south side of Milwaukee with her family.

Contenu
Preface
1 The Gombe skeletal sample and case studies 1.1 Introduction
1.2 Previous studies of the Gombe skeletal collection
1.3 Dominance rank
1.4 Skeletal analysis
1.5 Individual cases
2 Analysis of skeletal lesions
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Materials and methods
2.3 Is the skeletal sample representative of the overall population at Gombe?
2.4 What percent of the sample exhibits trauma and pathology?
2.5 What are the most frequently affected elements?
2.6 Arthropathy
2.7 Dental lesions
2.8 Are there sex differences in rates of trauma? Are there sex differences in location/pattern of trauma?
2.9 Analysis of proportion of traumatic lesions
2.10 Sex differences in trauma rate
2.11 Do rates of trauma differ between traumatic versus non-traumatic causes of death?
2.12 Do trauma rates increase with age?
2.13 Are there sex differences in rates of pathology? Are there sex differences in location/pattern of pathology?
2.14 Proportion of pathologic lesions
2.15 Sex differences in pathology rate
2.16 Do pathology rates increase with age?
2.17 Do rates of skeletal lesions differ between dominance rank categories?
2.18 Does age account for the effect size of the influence of rank on skeletal lesions?
2.19 Comparison with Kibale

3 Discussion
3.1 Sex differences in skeletal lesion rate
3.2 The complex relationship between dominance rank and skeletal lesions

Index