Data for: Simulation and social network analysis provide insight into the acquisition of tool behavior in hybrid macaques

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.