Primate Social Organization 81on domination through superior size and strength. Male
dominance hierarchies seemed “natural” to the early
primatologists who, after all, were coming from human
social systems organized according to similar principles.
With the benefit of detailed field studies over the last forty
years, many of which were pioneered by female primatologistsSocial Hierarchy
Relationships among individuals within ape communi-
ties are relatively harmonious. In the past, primatologists
believed that male dominance hierarchies (the pattern
seen in baboons), in which some animals outrank and may
dominate others, formed the basis of primate social struc-
tures. The researchers noted that physical strength and size
play a role in determining an animal’s rank. By this mea-
sure males generally outrank females. However, the gender
bias of the humans studying these animals may have con-
tributed disproportionately to this theory, with its emphasis
dominance hierarchies Observed ranking systems in pri-
mate societies ordering individuals from high (alpha) to low
standing corresponding to predictable behavioral interactions
including domination.Anthropologists of NoteJane Goodall (b. 1934) ■ Kinji Imanishi (1902–1992)In July 1960, Jane Goodall arrived with
her mother at the Gombe Chimpanzee
Reserve on the shores of Lake Tanganyika
in Tanzania. Goodall was the first of three
women Kenyan anthropologist Louis
Leakey sent out to study great apes in theon its way to becoming one of the most
dynamic field stations for the study of
animal behavior anywhere in the world.
Although Goodall is still very much
involved with chimpanzees, she spends
a good deal of time these days lecturing,
writing, and overseeing the work of other
researchers. She is heavily committed to
primate con-servation. Goodall is also pas-
sionately dedicated to halting illegal traf-
ficking in chimps as well as fighting for
the humane treatment of captive chimps.Kinji Imanishi—naturalist, explorer,
and mountain climber—profoundly
influenced primatology in Japan and
throughout the world. Like all Japanese
scholars, he was fully aware of Westernknew nothing at all about how this grass-
hopper lived in the wild.”a In his most
important work, The World of Living
Things, first published in 1941, Imani-
shi developed a comprehensive theory
about the natural world rooted in Japa-
nese cultural beliefs and practices.
Imanishi’s work challenged Western
evolutionary theory in several ways. First,
Imanishi’s theory, like Japanese culture,
does not emphasize differences between
humans and other animals. Second,
rather than focusing on the biology of
individual organisms, Imanishi suggested
that naturalists examine “specia” (a
species society) to which individuals be-
long as the unit of analysis. Rather than
focusing on time, Imanishi emphasized
space in his approach to the natural
world. He highlighted the harmony of
all living things rather than conflict and
competition among individual organisms.
Imanishi’s research techniques, now
standard worldwide, developed directly
from his theories: long-term field study of
primates in their natural societies using
methods from ethnography. With his
students, Imanishi conducted pioneering
field studies of African apes and Japanese
and Tibetan macaques, long before Louis
Leakey sent the first Western primatolo-
gists into the field. Japanese primatologists
were the first to document the importance
of kinship, the complexity of primate soci-
eties, patterns of social learning, and the
unique char-acter of each primate social
group. Because of the work by Imanishi
and his students, we now think about the
distinct cultures of primate societies.a Heita, K. (1999). Imanishi’s world
view. Journal of Japanese Trade and
Industry 18 (2), 15.© Michael Nichols/National Geographic Image Collection© Bunataro Imanishi
methods and theories but developed
a radically different approach to the
scientific study of the natural world.
He dates his transformation to a
youthful encounter with a grasshopper:
“I was walking along a path in a valley,
and there was a grasshopper on a leaf
in a shrubbery. Until that moment I had
happily caught insects, killed them with
chloroform, impaled them on pins, and
looked up their names, but I realized Iwild (the others were Dian Fossey and
Biruté Galdikas, who studied gorillas and
orangutans, respectively); her task was to
begin a long-term study of chimpanzees.
Little did she realize that, more than forty
years later, she would still be at it.
Born in London, Goodall grew up and
was schooled in Bournemouth, England.
As a child, she dreamed of going to live
in Africa, so when an invitation arrived
to visit a friend in Kenya, she jumped
at the opportunity. While in Kenya, she
met Leakey, who gave her a job as an
assistant secretary. Before long, she was
on her way to Gombe. Within a year, the
outside world began to hear the most
extraordinary things about this pioneer-
ing woman: tales of tool-making apes,
cooperative hunts by chimpanzees, and
what seemed like exotic chimpanzee
rain dances. By the mid-1960s, her
work had earned her a doctorate from
Cambridge University, and Gombe was