The value of teaching increases with tool complexity in cumulative cultural evolution.

ABSTRACT: Human cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) is recognized as a powerful ecological and evolutionary force, but its origins are poorly understood. The long-standing view that CCE requires specialized social learning processes such as teaching has recently come under question, and cannot explain why such processes evolved in the first place. An alternative, but largely untested, hypothesis is that these processes gradually coevolved with an increasing reliance on complex tools. To address this, we used large-scale transmission chain experiments (624 participants), to examine the role of different learning processes in generating cumulative improvements in two tool types of differing complexity. Both tool types increased in efficacy across experimental generations, but teaching only provided an

SUBMITTER: Lucas AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7739508 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature