The gathering will celebrate 40 years of study, pioneered by Goodall at her research center at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. But since then, she and others have opened our eyes. The chimpanzees at Gombe and elsewhere have been shown to make tools and organize themselves for such humanlike activities as war and cooperative hunting. Males will trade food for sex. In captivity, chimps seem to recognize themselves in mirrors.
Females can match photos of other mothers with photos of their offspring.
Chimps have been taught to use words in symbolic ways. In fact, a recent progress report about chimp research in the journal Science noted that the more we look, the less certain we become about what mental traits are uniquely human. They reconcile after fights. They form coalitions. They have a sort of cultural life.