Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior

Powell, Adam; Shennan, Stephen; Thomas, Mark G.

doi:10.1126/science.1170165

Cited by 864 publications

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“…These topics are non-exclusive and non-exhaustive, and they are intended to provide an initially broad set of targets for identifying external influences on tool use. In recent years, researchers have explored the relevance of the number of interacting individuals to the maintenance of traditions, showing that an increase in social contacts can allow for new ideas and techniques to be retained and spread more readily in a population [39][40][41][42]. The principle is not restricted to the human lineage [43], and wild orangutans and chimpanzees have been found to display increased complexity, success and frequency in tool use in increasingly social and higher population density settings [44][45][46].…”

Section: (B) Factors Promoting Captivity Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

Haslam

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Animals in captive or laboratory settings may outperform wild animals of the same species in both frequency and diversity of tool use, a phenomenon here termed ‘captivity bias’. Although speculative at this stage, a logical conclusion from this concept is that animals whose tool-use behaviour is observed solely under natural conditions may be judged cognitively or physically inferior than if they had also been tested or observed under controlled captive conditions. In turn, this situation creates a potential problem for studies of the behaviour of extinct members of the human family tree—the hominins—as hominin cognitive abilities are often judged on material evidence of tool-use behaviour left in the archaeological record. In this review, potential factors contributing to captivity bias in primates (including increased contact between individuals engaged in tool use, guidance or shaping of tool-use behaviour by other tool-users and increased free time and energy) are identified and assessed for their possible effects on the behaviour of the Late Pleistocene hominin Homo floresiensis . The captivity bias concept provides one way to uncouple hominin tool use from cognition, by considering hominins as subject to the same adaptive influences as other tool-using animals.

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Section: (B) Factors Promoting Captivity Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

Haslam

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…The model predicts that the more costs can be borne, be it by direct benefits or by capacity of the population 6 , the more psychosensory biases will be materialized. There are some indications from the archeological record that iconic art production (figurative imagery, realistic art) is a mainly culturally transmitted behavior (paper submitted by the authors; also see Shennan 2001;Powell et al 2009), while the ability to experience and interpret art is not and is in fact predating art production just like the origin of female sensory biases leading to mate preferences sometimes predate exploitation (e.g. Ryan 1998).…”

Section: Self-exploitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ryan 1998). The process of gradual accumulation of innovative skills and knowledge as a consequence of cultural "cumulative adaptive evolution" (Henrich 2004, Powell et al 2009) also positively affects art production in the sense that it is less hindered by costs (i.e.…”

Section: Self-exploitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory Exploitation: Underestimated in the Evolution of Art As Once in Sexual Selection Theory?

Verpooten

Nelissen

2011

Philosophy of Behavioral Biology

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“…Henrich's (2004) original model contained certain assumptions concerning the micro-level link between demography and complexity (e.g. payoff-biased social learning), but large-scale archaeological studies such as Powell et al (2009) can only test the outcome of this model, not the validity of the mechanisms. Derex et al (2013), Muthukrishna et al (2014) and all found that, as predicted, larger groups containing more individuals from whom to learn supported higher levels of cultural complexity in various tasks, including designing computerised fishing nets, knottying, and completing jigsaw puzzles.…”

Section: Demography Can Influence the Evolution Of Cultural Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies

2015

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The last two decades have seen an explosion in research analysing cultural change as a Darwinian evolutionary process. Here I provide an overview of the theory of cultural evolution, including its intellectual history, major theoretical tenets and methods, key findings, and prominent criticisms and controversies. 'Culture' is defined as socially transmitted information. Cultural evolution is the theory that this socially transmitted information evolves in the manner laid out by Darwin in The Origin of Species, i.e. it comprises a system of variation, differential fitness and inheritance. Cultural evolution is not, however, neo-Darwinian, in that many of the details of genetic evolution may not apply, such as particulate inheritance and random mutation. Following a brief history of this idea, I review theoretical and empirical studies of cultural microevolution, which entails both selection-like processes wherein some cultural variants are more likely to be acquired and transmitted than others, plus transformative processes that alter cultural information during transmission. I also review how phylogenetic methods have been used to reconstruct cultural macroevolution, including the evolution of languages, technology and social organisation. Finally, I discuss recent controversies and debates, including the extent to which culture is proximate or ultimate, the relative role of selective and transformative processes in cultural evolution, the basis of cumulative cultural evolution, the evolution of large-scale human cooperation, and whether social learning is learned or innate. I conclude by highlighting the value of using evolutionary methods to study culture for both the social and biological sciences.

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Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior

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Cited by 864 publications

References 31 publications

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

Sensory Exploitation: Underestimated in the Evolution of Art As Once in Sexual Selection Theory?

Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies

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