Arguably the most powerful social tool in the animal kingdom, language may have evolved as an adaptation to a new demand: the coordination of joint action. Coordinated joint action requires highly flexible adjustments in communicative behaviour regarding social context, interaction partner and ecological settings. Are the evolutionary roots of this plasticity to be found in our closest living relatives, the great apes? This hypothesis remains to be tested, because most comparative work focuses on population- or species-level variation rather than variation on the individual level. To tease apart variation on an individual, group and species level, we will gather comparative observational and experimental datasets on the coordination of joint activities in great apes and humans. The successful applicant will study social interactions among orang-utans in wild (Suaq, North Sumatra, Indonesia) and captive (various zoos in Europe) research settings.
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