A PIONEERING new centre dedicated to understanding the origins of human behaviour will be unveiled today.

The Living Links to Human Evolution Centre at Edinburgh Zoo will allow researchers from St Andrews University and other Scots universities to observe primates’ behaviour.

The £1.6 million state-of-the-art centre is to be officially opened by renowned primatologist Dr Jane Goodall, whose landmark research is credited with redefining the relationship between humans and animals.

Dr Goodall discovered the first tool use in non-human primates and defied scientific convention by giving chimps she observed names instead of numbers.

Her work came to be regarded as the foundation of future primatological research and in 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats.

The Edinburgh centre is the result of a partnership between St Andrews University and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which owns the zoo.

Inside its walls researchers will attempt to answer questions such as what makes us human?

Director Professor Andrew Whiten, of the Fife university, said, “We humans are primates and by great good fortune numerous other species of primates have survived millions of years of evolution and by natural selection to share the planet with us today.

“They are the closest living links to homo sapiens and they are precious living links to our past.

“Ingenious studies of these primates have recently provided many insights into the origins of the human mind.

“We want to find out all the ways in which these primates share some of our mental abilities, and just where the differences begin.”

The base will be a combination of field station and research centre, with re- created mixed-species communities of capuchins and squirrel monkeys which are natural in the wild.

Interaction between the two South American species will be monitored, helping researchers understand the cultural connections we share with our primate relatives.

St Andrews researchers have already made numerous discoveries relating to non-human primate behaviour and their links to human evolution.

Mr Whiten said, “We already have some evidence that different groups of monkeys develop different local traditions, which suggests a simple form of ‘culture.’

“Living Links has been specially designed to have two separate but similar enclosures, so we are going to be able to make new discoveries here about the extent to which new forms of behaviour we start off in one group does spread to become a local tradition, not found in the other group.

“For example, will they learn new things from each other?”

Studies will include observations of tool use, communication, social relationships and intelligence in monkeys, which researchers hope will illuminate the origins of human behaviour.

Projects will be undertaken by members of the Scottish Primate Research Group, which spans the universities of St Andrews, Stirling, Edinburgh and Abertay.

The centre will also provide opportunities for public engagement with science.