(U-WIRE) - Orangutans, long disparaged as prime examples of the brutish ape, are enjoying newfound respect thanks to recent research demonstrating their primitive grasp on a supposedly humans-only possession - culture.

An international team of scientists, led by Duke University Professor of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy Carel van Schaik, pored over years of research to establish the evidence that orangutans, like humans, acquire patterns of behavior - everything from tool use to sexual technique to bedtime ritual - from being around others in a group, which scientists term culture.

The finding sets the beginning of the development of culture to about 14 million years ago, when the human lineage is theorized to have broken off from the orangutans'.