50 years ago Jane Goodall got into trouble for suggesting chimps displayed personalities and moods. " Foul! " cried scientists, "that's Anthropomorphism!" Today, the fact that animals recognise individuals within their group, choose whom to copy, and whom to learn from - and that their populations have distinct social traditions and behaviours - suggests that culture is not an exclusively human attribute.

Rana Mitter talks to the primatologist, Andrew Whiten, Professor of Evolutionary and Development Psychology at St Andrews, to Dr Katie Slocombe of York University and to the social anthropologist, Professor Alex Bentley of Bristol University, about chimps and imitation, culture and evolution - from the deep past to our digital present.

Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage Gateshead in 2014.

All the discussions and essays from the Free Thinking festival are available as Radio 3 Arts and Ideas downloads. Show less