Many researchers are interested in chimpanzee vocal communication, both as an important aspect of chimpanzee social behavior and as a source of insights into the evolution of human language. Nonetheless, very little is known about how chimpanzee vocal communication develops from infancy to adulthood. The largest dataset of audiorecordings from free-living immature chimpanzees was collected by the late Hetty van de Rijt-Plooij and Frans X. Plooij at Gombe National Park, Tanzania (1971–1973). These recordings have not yet been analysed. Therefore, the most extensive effort to study the development of chimpanzee vocalizations remains unfinished. The audiospecimens total over 10 h on 28 tapes, including 20 tapes focusing on 17 specific immature individuals with a total of 1,136 recordings. In order to make this dataset available to more researchers, the analogue sound recordings were digitized and stored in the Macaulay Library and the Dryad Repository. In addition, the original notes on the contexts of the calls were translated and transcribed from Dutch into English.
Gombe_biography-for_1971-3
The Gombe_biography for the chimpanzee individuals present during the span of time that the recordings were made. The Gombe biography contains 13 columns, but the ones most useful for analyzing the vocalizations are the name of the individual (column B), the birth date (column C), the name of the mother (column H) and the sex of the individual (column I). The columns are explained in Strier et al. [1].1. Strier, K.B., et al., The Primate Life History Database: A unique shared ecological data resource. Methods Ecol Evol, 2010. 1(2): p. 199-211.
List of names of infant vocalizations
A list of names of infant vocalizations as used in the Macaulay Library database notes and in the ‘All Infants’ spreadsheet.
Dryad Readme file
Describing the Gombe chimps data package including the unparsed digital copies of the chimp tapes and the metadata for the individual sound recordings.
Atlas
All recordings of immature individual Atlas
Demo Tape
Collection of good recordings for demonstration purposes
Demo Thesis 1
Collection of good recordings for demonstration purposes
Demo Thesis 2
Collection of good recordings for demonstration purposes
Demo Thesis 3
Collection of good recordings for demonstration purposes
Flint 1
First recordings of immature individual Flint
Flint 2
Second recordings of immature individual Flint
Freud 1
First recordings of immature individual Freud
Freud 2
Second recordings of immature individual Freud
Gilka
All recordings of immature individual Gilka
Goblin
All recordings of immature individual Goblin
Gremlin
All recordings of immature individual Gremlin
Kobi
All recordings of immature individual Kobi
Little Bee
All recordings of immature individual Little Bee
Moeza
All recordings of immature individual Moeza
Mustard
All recordings of immature individual Mustard
Plato
All recordings of immature individual Plato
Pom
All recordings of immature individual Pom
Prof
All recordings of immature individual Prof
Sherry
All recordings of immature individual Sherry
Skosha
All recordings of immature individual Shosha
Sniff
All recordings of immature individual Sniff
Wilky
All recordings of immature individual Wilky
All Infants_3July2014final.xlsx
The first column of the spreadsheet contains the Macaulay catalog number and that is the link to the Macaulay database. The spreadsheet is basically the same as the Macaulay database except that the columns are organized in a slightly different way. From left to right the following columns can be found: ‘Macaulay catalog number’, ‘Recording Device’, ‘Focal individual’, ‘Focal Birthdate’, ‘Recordist record number’, the ‘Level of Recording’ as selected on the Nagra sound recorder, the ‘Quality outstanding’ column where an x indicates a recording that is outstanding for various reasons (such as a very clear, good-quality recording, a recording where the vocalization is without other, simultaneous vocalizations, a recording that is a good example of the development of infant vocalizations, a recording showing nice mother-infant interaction, a recording that illustrates how the infant ‘follows’ the vocalizations of the mother), the ‘Month’, ‘Day’ and ‘Year’ of the recording, the ‘Other individuals Vocalizing’ in the recording of the Focal Individual, the ‘Date’ of the recording, the ‘Focal age’ (the age in years of the focal individual at the date of recording), the ‘Individual(s) with sound/call type’, the ‘Observation of context’ and behaviors surrounding the vocalizations, the ‘Macaulay Library Public Notes’ field, the ‘Microphone’, the ‘Recorder’, and the ‘Tape Speed’. As is described in the Usage Notes section, the grammar of the column containing individual(s) with sound/call type is such that the sequence of vocalizing is preserved. This gives information on who initiated calling, if several individuals called. This is important because it shows that vocalizations of others often triggered infants to vocalize. In the column “Observation of the context and behaviors surrounding the vocalizations” the presence of nearby individuals was also noted, even if they did not vocalize. Please note that this is an updated version of "All Infants_3July2014final.xlsx", which is available in version 1 of this data package.
All Infants_3July2014final_v2.xlsx