They suggested several explanatory hypotheses, but found them inadequate and the behavior puzzling and enigmatic. The authors hypothesized the behavior qualified as a form of ritualized behavioral display. The report of chimpanzee stone accumulation behavior at four sites in West Africa (Kühl, et al., 2016) is a strong candidate for such evidence. What might constitute early evidence for the evolution of ethics? To answer this, it would be useful to know whether chimpanzees or an early species of Homo are associated with any primatological or archaeological evidence for what might be categorized as ethics or ethical-moral behavior. (2016) movies of chimpanzees performing the ritual revises the concept of 'deep ethics' by adding aspects homologous to human art, music and other expressive art therapies further explores the ritual's implications for the evolution of art and music in hominin evolution and adds hyperlinks for reference pages.

This version3 adds a section on the Olduvai Gorge Oldowan DK site stone circle updates with new findings on the role of different tree species in the chimpanzee ritual (Kalan, et al., 2019) adds still images and links for several Kühl, et al. This is an updated and expanded version of Harrod (2021). These findings support hypotheses that propose religious behaviors for other species, including hominins prior to Homo sapiens sapiens. The patterning of chimpanzee ritual behaviors evidences all the components of a prototypical trans-species definition of religion. In the course of these performances, chimpanzees decontextualize and convert everyday communicative signals to express non-ordinary emotions of wonder and awe. A structuralist analysis of these patterns shows that chimpanzees deploy similar formulaic action schemas involving recombination of syntagmatic and paradigmatic behaviors across all four of these life-situations. A comprehensive review of primatology reports reveals that chimpanzees do perform ritualized patterns of behavior in response to birth, death, consortship, and elemental natural phenomena. I use methods from religious studies and anthropology of religion that demonstrate an answer in the affirmative. Do chimpanzees engage in religious behaviors? To date this question remains unanswered.

Chimpanzee