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 The findings, based on nine experiments conducted at the
Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and published in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that chimps have all the
brainpower needed to cook, including planning, causal understanding,
and ability to postpone gratification.
They do lack the ability to produce fire. But if they were given a
source of heat, chimps "might be quite able to manipulate (it) to
cook," said developmental psychologist Felix Warneken of Harvard
University, who conducted the study with Alexandra Rosati.
While the finding may seem esoteric, it lends support to the idea
that cooking accelerated human evolution. Cooked food is easier to
digest, spurring the growth of large brains in our australopithecine
ancestors, Harvard's Richard Wrangham proposed about a decade ago.
 If chimps have the cognitive skills to cook, australopithecines
likely did, too, said Wrangham, who was not involved in the study:
"It suggests that with a little extra brainpower, australopithecines
could indeed have found a way to use fire to cook food."
Archaeological evidence suggests humans began using fire 1 million
years ago.
Some of the experiments confirmed studies by other scientists, such
as that chimps prefer seared sweet potatoes to raw. But those tests
did not test whether chimps have the mental chops to cook.
Other tests did. For instance, the scientists presented chimps with
two containers. One yielded cooked food through a false bottom, not
actually cooking, and one did not.
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The chimps learned that one transforms potatoes from raw to cooked.
Given a choice of which device to put food in, they almost always
opted for the "cooker," showing they understood and willingly waited
for the raw-to-cooked transformation.
Chimps did not put pieces of wood that scientists gave them into the
cooker, suggesting they grasped that only food can be cooked.
Surprisingly, since chimps usually eat food immediately, they were
often willing to walk across a room to cook. When the first one did
this, the scientists wondered if they had a single "chimpanzee
genius," Warneken said. But others showed the same ability,
understanding the idea of cooking and postponing gratification to do
it.
There was no evidence, however, that they understood the concept of
tipping.
(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by David Gregorio)
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