Let’s say someone successfully cloned human ancestors. Then what? Are they like chimps, to be put in a zoo or a nature reserve? Do they need carers? Should we enroll them in kindergarten? What do fossils tell us about how early humans would fit in with modern ones?

Is it Ethical to Make Animals as Smart as People?

Two reports of chimpanzees tending their dead provide poignant examples of how humanity’s closest relatives grieve for the dead, a behavior once thought unique to humans. In one report, two mothers in a chimpanzee colony in Guinea carried the dead bodies of their infants for weeks. In the other, chimps at a safari park in Britain cared for an elderly female in her final days. “We propose that chimpanzees’ response to death has been underestimated,” wrote researchers led by University of Stirling psychologist James Anderson in a paper published April 26 in Current Biology.

A 50-year-old chimp named Pansy, kept at the Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park in Stirlingshire, Scotland, grew lethargic in November 2008. Shortly afterward, the park’s chimpanzees were moved indoors for winter, but Pansy continued to grow weaker, and stopped leaving her nest.

Pansy’s companions were her daughter, a 20-year-old female named Rosie; Blossom, another 50-year-old female; and Blossom’s 20-year-ol