The pathways through which primates acquire skills are a central focus of cultural evolution studies. The roles of social and genetic inheritance processes in skill acquisition are often confounded by environmental factors. Hybrid macaques from Koram Island, Thailand provide an opportunity to examine the roles of inheritance and social learning to skill acquisition within a single ecological setting. These hybrids are a cross between tool-using Burmese long-tailed (Macaca fascicularis aurea) and non-tool-using common long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis fascicularis). This population provides an opportunity to explore the roles of social learning and inheritance processes while being able to exclude underlying ecological factors. Here, we investigate the roles of social learning and inheritance in tool use prevalence within this population using social network analysis and simulation. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is used to generate expectations for how social/asocial learning and inheritance structure the patterning in a social network. The results of the simulation show that various transmission mechanisms can be differentiated based on associations between individuals in a social network. The results provide an investigative framework for discussing tool-use transmission pathways in the Koram social network. By combining ABM, network analysis, and behavioral data from the field we can investigate the roles social learning and inheritance play in tool acquisition in wild primates. 

These 6 datasets associated with the paper titled, "Simulation and social network analysis provide insight into the acquisition of tool behavior in hybrid macaques" housed in this repository. 

1) ABM_Social_Condition.csv

2) ABM_Inheritance_Condition.csv

3) ABM_Asocial_na1as25_Condition.csv

4) ABM_Asocial_na10as25_Condition.csv

5) ABM_Asocial_na200as25_Condition.csv

6) Koram.csv

Datasets 1–5 consist of simulated data generated by various conditions of the Agent-based model published in this work. A full description of the model accompanies the publication as supplementary material. The code for the model is actively maintained by the authors and can be publically accessed by following this link. Each individual is summarized by their tool user status, age, phenotype, and position in the social network (see Readme.md). 

Dataset 6: Contains comparable data for individuals of hybrid macaques from Koram island, Thailand. These data were generated from observations made during focal follows over a period of 1 year and 2 months between October 2013 and December 2014. These observations were then used to characterize each individual in terms of their age, phenotype, tool user status, and position in the social network. 

R v4.2.2 was used to quantify and organize the data into the state that it is in now. All code associated with data processing is actively maintained at this link.