The discovery of DNA has had a massive impact on our understanding of human evolution.

Foremost is the realisation that about 5 million years ago, we shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees.

The bonobo is less well known than chimpanzees, but those two diverged about 2 million years ago. Kanzi is probably the best known bonobo. In a recent lecture series on we clever apes, I showed a movie clip of Kanzi flaking a stone tool, then walking to a box containing an apple. With his stone knife, he severed the rope sealing the box to secure the apple.

Now, Kanzi has again hit the headlines. Invited to a make-believe tea party, he watched as a man with an empty jug pretended to fill two glasses with orange juice. He then emptied one of them back into the jug. Kanzi always chose the glass for a drink that had not been emptied.

There has been much speculation on when our ancestors learned languages.…