Cognition

Baboons offer some possible insights into early hominin mental processes. First, they provide the minimal case for mental ability in the earliest hominins: anything that is within the realm of baboon abilities was probably paralleled by early hominin mental processes. Experiments provide evidence that baboons are capable of quantification, reasoning by exclusion, cognitive flexibility, and metacognition. Baboons also offer some more specific analogies for hominin mental processes. Many of these fall into the domain of ecological relations. They include (1) the effects of diet and travel on brain size; (2) manipulation of stones in foraging, predator defense, and perhaps construction of shelters; and (3) spatial comprehension, travel decisions, and organization for group travel.