Ape family tree suggests human ancestors weren’t particularly violent

The last common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees and bonobos wasn’t especially prone to violence, according to a study attempting to reconstruct the evolution of warlike behaviour among apes. Hostility between groups of this ancestor may have been tempered by bonds between unrelated females, the study suggests – but researchers warn that its conclusions are highly speculative.

The question of whether violence is integral to human nature has been debated for centuries. Biologists have tried to answer it by looking at chimpanzees, which, along …