An archive of longitudinal recordings of the vocalizations of adult Gombe chimpanzees

Studies of chimpanzee vocal communication provide valuable insights into the evolution of communication in complex societies, and also comparative data for understanding the evolution of human language. One particularly valuable dataset of recordings from free-living chimpanzees was collected by Frans X. Plooij and the late Hetty van de Rijt-Plooij at Gombe National Park, Tanzania (1971–73). These audio specimens, which have not yet been analysed, total over 10 h on 28 tapes, including 7 tapes focusing on adult individuals with a total of 605 recordings. In 2014 the first part of that collection of audio specimens covering the vocalizations of the immature Gombe chimpanzees was made available. The data package described here covers the vocalizations of the adult chimpanzees. We expect these recordings will prove useful for studies on topics including referential signalling and the emergence of dialects. The digitized sound recordings were stored in the Macaulay Library and the Dryad Repository. In addition, the original notes on the contexts of the calls were translated and transcribed from Dutch into English.