ABSTRACT
As I will later describe, my observations eventually capture evidence of the chimpanzees making mark-making actions. This fi nding is a challenge to those who, whilst conceding that chimpanzees living with humans may become interested in painting and drawing, insist that those in the wild will never do so. There seems to be suffi cient evidence in the present study to contest this assumption. Basic mark-making actions may well occur naturally in the wild. In human childhood, early mark-making seems to move through successive levels of complexity, resolution and differentiation. Elsewhere, I have grouped these marking actions (along with other, related but non-marking actions) into First, Second and Third Generation Structure (Matthews, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2010). The fi rst drawing actions used by the younger chimpanzees seem to be of the same class as those produced by human children. I term these First Generation Marking Action (or First Generation Structure). First Generation Structure comprises three basic actions. These three each has its own journey through an epigenetic landscape and, for the purposes of analysis, each may be treated as a separate entity. In real life, however, the developmental pathways of one criss-cross those of the others; the development of one action is linked with the development of those of the other two.
