[pigbucket]

>I find it hard to believe that in the millennia of recorded observations of animals, that no one observed a single instance of rock-bashing or stick-throwing.

Pliny's Natural History, which every natural philosopher and biologist in the west up until the 18th century likely read, is full of observations of interesting and apparently more than instinctual animal behavior, including the use of stones by ravens to raise water level in a jug (the observation at the root of the well-known fable by Aesop).

Against the long tradition of seeing humans as in some essential way distinct from animals (by virtue of tool use, or speech, or reason, or compassion, and so on) there is a counter-tradition (from Empiricus to Montaigne) of denying the distinction, and that tradition has collected gobs of anecdotes and observations of apparent reason, communication and tool use).

[jberryman]

That's awesome. Thanks for the background.