My own internet searching turned up a few studies indicating that some chimpanzees were able to recognize images in human works of art. When chimpanzees tried to draw on their own, they drew "hooks" and "squiggles", but that was about the extent of chimpanzee drawing I found. One researcher (probably looking for something to say) commented that chimpanzee drawings tended to be clustered on the bottom part of the page. I don't think chimpanzees are doing anything that we would call representational.

I don't think they do, I think its safe to say that Homo Sapiens developed differing methods of communication based on local culture just like animals would have identified with each other due to territory markings.

However, we all eventually developed speech and chimpanzees were quickly overcame(and would probably not be able to perform as soon as we could share knowledge in a way that better utilized our brain.

This is one of the key reasons I support Eliezer's FOOM speed theory's over Robin. If we have an AI that can respond to basic speech and memory, then expand it over larger amounts of computing power all of our knowledge is their for it to build upon. Once you get those few architectural insights that separate our brains from our less evolved cousins growth accelerates exponentially and who knows what a seed AI could grow to in that amount of time.

Anyway, sorry for getting off the main point but this discussion ties really clearly into a lot of what they were discussing in the recent debate from my perspective.