The research adds weight to the so-called “drunken monkey” hypothesis – the idea that the human appetite for alcohol was inherited from our primate ancestors.
This was first proposed by Prof Robert Dudley of the University of California, Berkeley, who is a co-researcher on the study.
Scientists were initially sceptical. But more observations of “scrumping apes” have emerged in recent years, said Prof Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at the University of St Andrews, who was not part of the research team.
“What we’re realising from this work is that our relationship with alcohol goes deep back into evolutionary time, probably about 30 million years,” she told BBC News.
“Maybe for chimpanzees, this is a great way to create social bonds, to hang out together on the forest floor, eating those fallen fruits.”