Paper short abstract:

Although greeting is well studied in many species leave-taking has been largely ignored. In the first cross-species study on leave-taking I seek to identify its evolutionary origins: does it relate to the risk of separation, or play a functional role in maintaining cohesion?

Paper long abstract:

Humans universally greet when they meet one another and have rituals of leave-taking when they part. These every day rituals are so ingrained in our social exchanges that they have been termed "bookends of interaction". Greeting rituals have been well studied in human societies as well as across the animal kingdom, however studies of leave-taking are entirely absent when looking beyond humans. Human rituals are known to have been important in our evolution and can involve adaptive functions to generate cohesion and social bonding, thus an investigation into one of our most frequently occurring rituals is long overdue. In the first cross-species study on leave-taking I seek to identify its evolutionary origins: whether it has a functional mechanism for group cohesion or has evolved as a by-product of being apart in spatially dispersed populations. This will be conducted through a cross-cultural, cross-species analysis in four species: humans (Homo sapiens), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) and vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythus). Together video footage will be analysed to determine whether markers of leave-taking exist, if they relate to the risk of separation, or play a functional role in maintaining cohesion.