When people think about our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, chimpanzees usually come to mind. Chimpanzees are intelligent, highly social and capable of remarkable cooperation—but they are also well known for violent territorial conflicts and dominance struggles.
Less well known are bonobos, which share virtually the same amount of DNA with humans as chimpanzees do. Yet bonobos display strikingly different social behaviour. They are generally more tolerant, less aggressive and far more cooperative than their chimpanzee cousins.
For decades, anthropologists, primatologists and evolutionary biologists have studied bonobos in the hope of answering a fascinating question: if two closely related ape species can behave so differently, what might that reveal about ourselves?
Bonobos and the Evolution of Cooperation
Much of what scientists know about bonobos comes from decades of field observations and research by primatologists such as Frans de Waal. Bonobo societies tend to be characterised by relatively low levels of violence, strong social bonds and sophisticated methods of resolving tension before conflicts escalate.
Rather than relying primarily on aggression to establish dominance, bonobos frequently maintain group cohesion through cooperation, social interaction and reconciliation. While they are certainly not free from conflict, they appear considerably less prone to the lethal intergroup violence often observed among chimpanzees.
These differences have made bonobos an important species for researchers exploring the evolutionary origins of empathy, cooperation and social intelligence.
Were Early Humans More Cooperative Than We Assume?
A growing number of anthropologists have argued that cooperation played a much larger role in human evolution than previously recognised.
Research into early hominins has highlighted evidence for extensive food sharing, cooperative child-rearing and increasingly complex social organisation. Some researchers argue that these behaviours were essential to humanity's evolutionary success, allowing our ancestors to survive in challenging environments that no individual could have managed alone.
Rather than viewing competition as humanity's defining characteristic, this research suggests that our extraordinary capacity for cooperation may have been one of the key traits that made our species unique.
Jeremy Griffith's Interpretation
Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith places cooperation at the very centre of his explanation of the human condition.
Griffith argues that humans originally evolved as an instinctively cooperative species whose behaviour was based on selflessness, nurturing and mutual support. In his view, bonobos provide one of the closest living examples of the extraordinarily cooperative social orientation that characterised our early ancestors before humans became fully conscious.
According to Griffith, the major turning point in human history occurred not because humans became more aggressive by nature, but because the emergence of consciousness created an unavoidable conflict between our instinctive orientations and our conscious intellect's need to experiment, question and discover understanding independently.
He argues that this psychological conflict produced the insecurity that eventually expressed itself as anger, egocentricity and alienation. In other words,
humanity's destructive behaviours are not our original nature but developed as defensive responses to the human condition.
This interpretation differs significantly from many traditional evolutionary accounts that place greater emphasis on competition. Griffith instead argues that our cooperative instincts remain fundamental to who we are, and that understanding the source of the later psychological conflict makes it possible for those cooperative qualities to once again become the dominant influence on human behaviour.
Readers interested in learning more about Griffith's work can explore discussions including Who Is Jeremy Griffith?, About Biologist Jeremy Griffith, and My Take on Jeremy Griffith's Interview and Explanation of the Human Condition, where readers discuss both his explanation and its implications.
What Bonobos Can Teach Us
Bonobos continue to fascinate scientists because they demonstrate that our closest relatives are not defined solely by aggression or competition. Their societies show that cooperation, reconciliation and strong social bonds can also be successful evolutionary strategies.
Exactly what bonobos reveal about human evolution remains an active area of research, and different scholars draw different conclusions from the evidence. Nevertheless, their existence challenges simplistic assumptions about human nature and reminds us that cooperation is deeply rooted within the primate family.
Whether viewed through modern primatology or through Jeremy Griffith's broader biological explanation of the human condition, bonobos offer an intriguing window into one of humanity's oldest questions: are we fundamentally competitive, or were we originally built for cooperation?
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