ASU study points to origin of cumulative culture in human evolution | ASU News
Stone tools that become increasingly more complex over the course of 3 million years. Left: First time period studied — Oldowan core, Koobi Fora, Kenya (below baselines). Center: Second time period studied — Acheulean cleaver, Algeria (around baseline). Right: Characteristic of 600,000 year ago technology — Levallois core, late Pleistocene Algeria.
Image credits: (left) Curry, Michael. 2020. Oldowan Core, Koobi Fora. Museum of Stone Tools. Retrieved June 10. From: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/DGHMTdkn4_;
(middle) Curry, Michael. 2020. Acheulean Cleaver, Morocco, Koobi Fora. Museum of Stone Tools. Retrieved June 10. From: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29;
(right) Watt, Emma. 2020. Levallois Core, Algeria. Museum of Stone Tools. Retrieved June 10. From: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29.
(middle) Curry, Michael. 2020. Acheulean Cleaver, Morocco, Koobi Fora. Museum of Stone Tools. Retrieved June 10. From: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29;
(right) Watt, Emma. 2020. Levallois Core, Algeria. Museum of Stone Tools. Retrieved June 10. From: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29.
Generally speaking, human culture has been like a snowball rolling down a snow-covered hillside. The bigger the snowball gets, the more snow it accumulates, so its growth is exponential. Interestingly, and something for creationists to ignore, is the fact that human cultural evolution began before anatomically modern humans had evolved, so, as Homo sapiens, as with our genes, we inherited the beginnings of our culture from an ancestral species.
Contrast that with the childish creationist origin myth which has humans all descending from two individuals magically created without ancestors.
How the two authors carried out their research is the subject of an Arizona State University (ASU) news release by Julie Russ:
ASU study points to origin of cumulative culture in human evolutionSadly, the paper in PNAS is behind a paywall, so only the abstract id freely available:
Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge through social learning around 600,000 years ago
Each of us individually is the accumulated product of thousands of generations that have come before us in an unbroken line. Our culture and technology today are also the result of thousands of years of accumulated and remixed cultural knowledge.
But when did our earliest ancestors begin to make connections and start to build on the knowledge of others, setting us apart from other primates? Cumulative culture — the accumulation of technological modifications and improvements over generations — allowed humans to adapt to a diversity of environments and challenges. But, it is unclear when cumulative culture first developed during hominin evolution.
A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal by Arizona State University associate professor, Charles Perreault, and doctoral graduate, Jonathan Paige, of the University of Missouri, concludes that humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge through social learning around 600,000 years ago.
To investigate when this technological turn may have begun and to explore the origin of cumulative culture, Paige and Perreault analyzed changes in the complexity of stone tool manufacturing techniques across the past 3.3 million years of the archaeological record.Our species, Homo sapiens, has been successful at adapting to ecological conditions — from tropical forests to arctic tundra — that require different kinds of problems to be solved. Cumulative culture is key because it allows human populations to build on and recombine the solutions of prior generations and to develop new complex solutions to problems very quickly. The result is, our cultures — from technological problems and solutions to how we organize our institutions — are too complex for individuals to invent on their own.
Associate Professor Charles Perreault, co-author
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
As a baseline for the complexity of stone tool technologies achievable without cumulative culture, the researchers analyzed technologies used by nonhuman primates — like chimpanzees — and stone tool manufacturing experiments involving inexperienced human flintknappers and randomized flaking.
The researchers broke down the complexity of the stone tool technologies by the number of steps (procedural units, or PUs) that each tool-making sequence involved.
The results suggested that from around 3.3 to 1.8 million years ago — when australopiths and earliest Homo species were around — stone tool manufacturing sequences remained within the range of the baselines (1 to 6 PUs). From around 1.8 million to 600,000 years ago, manufacturing sequences began to overlap with and slightly exceed the complexity baseline (4 to 7 PUs). But, after around 600,000 years ago, the complexity of manufacturing sequences rapidly increased (5 to 18 PUs).
Tool-assisted foraging may have been the impetus for the earliest beginning of the evolution of cumulative culture. Early hominins, 3.4 to 2 million years ago, likely relied on foraging strategies that require tools — like accessing meat, marrow and organs — leading to changes in brain size, lifespan and biology that set the stage for cumulative culture.By 600,000 years ago or so, hominin populations started relying on unusually complex technologies, and we only see rapid increases in complexity after that time as well. Both of those findings match what we expect to see among hominins who rely on cumulative culture.
Dr Jonathan Paige, first author
Department of Anthropology
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. USA.
While other forms of social learning may have influenced tool-making, it is only in the Middle Pleistocene when there is evidence for rapid increases in technological complexity and the development of other kinds of new technologies.
The Middle Pleistocene also shows consistent evidence of controlled use of fire, hearths and domestic spaces, likely essential components of the development of cumulative culture. Other kinds of complex technologies also developed in the Middle Pleistocene, including wooden structures constructed with logs hewn using hafted tools, which are stone blades affixed to wooden or bone handles.
This all suggests that cumulative culture arose near the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene epoch, possibly predating the divergence of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Published article: 3.3 million years of stone tool complexity suggests cumulative culture began during the Middle Pleistocene. Jonathan Paige and Charles Perrealt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
SignificanceThat anyone would expect the Bronze Age pastoralists whose campfire tales were made up to fill the gaping gap in their understanding of their own origins, from a position of complete ignorance of anywhere outside their few square miles of Canaanite hills, to accurately describe real history, is itself as beyond belief as are the tales they invented. But then, how were they to know that hundreds of years later, someone would bind their tales up into a book they then declared to be the inerrant word of a creator god? Had they known that would happen, they may have taken more care to connect their tales with reality and make them more believable.
Our species, Homo sapiens, occupies a uniquely diverse set of ecological habitats. Humans expanded into tropical forests and arctic tundra through cumulative culture. Cumulative culture is the accumulation of modifications, innovations, and improvements over generations through social learning. Generations of variant accumulations allow humans to use technologies and know-how well beyond what a single naive individual could invent independently within their lifetime. We analyzed the stone tools made during the last 3.3 My. We found that these stone tools remained simple until about 600,000 B.P. After that point, stone tools rapidly increased in complexity. Consistent with findings from other research teams, we suggest that this transition signals the development of cumulative culture in the human lineage.
Abstract
Cumulative culture, the accumulation of modifications, innovations, and improvements over generations through social learning, is a key determinant of the behavioral diversity across Homo sapiens populations and their ability to adapt to varied ecological habitats. Generations of improvements, modifications, and lucky errors allow humans to use technologies and know-how well beyond what a single naive individual could invent independently within their lifetime. The human dependence on cumulative culture may have shaped the evolution of biological and behavioral traits in the hominin lineage, including brain size, body size, life history, sociality, subsistence, and ecological niche expansion. Yet, we do not know when, in the human career, our ancestors began to depend on cumulative culture. Here, we show that hominins likely relied on a derived form of cumulative culture by at least ~600 kya, a result in line with a growing body of existing evidence. We analyzed the complexity of stone tool manufacturing sequences over the last 3.3 My of the archaeological record. We then compare these to the achievable complexity without cumulative culture, which we estimate using nonhuman primate technologies and stone tool manufacturing experiments. We find that archaeological technologies become significantly more complex than expected in the absence of cumulative culture only after ~600 kya.
Paige, Jonathan; Perreault, Charles
3.3 million years of stone tool complexity suggests cumulative culture began during the Middle Pleistocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(26) e2319175121; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2319175121
© 2024 PNAS.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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The Pliocene epoch of the late Tertiary period is one of the most fascinating time periods in my opinion. It was a time period when proto-humans existed such as Australopithecus lived and when the great Apes such as Chimpanzees and Gorillas first appeared. It was the age of Hominids.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest mysteries for me is when exactly did hunting animals take place,? Early hominids likely were scavengers at first and would eat animals that were already dead. The active hunting of animals would come later on. Knives, machetes, spears were early weapons. There's evidence of such weapons as long ago as 2.6 million years ago. Early hominids were likely omnivores, eating plants and nuts and gradually increasing to a meat diet. Eating meat came very early in human prehistory, just as eating meat came very early in animal prehistory. Hominids may have been eating meat for at least 4 million years and have been actively hunting animals for at least 2.6 million years and animals have been predators since the Cambrian period, early Paleozoic Era, for some 540 million years ago! As can be plainly seen there never really was a peaceable kingdom where everyone and everything was a peaceful herbivore as the ignorant author of Genesis writes. Supposedly the world was a peaceable kingdom until the fateful day Adam and Eve ate a forbidden apple. Utter nonsense.
Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Gorillas in Africa she'd some light as to how some of our hominid ancestors lived. Dr. Louis Leakey and Donald Johansen, who discovered Lucy, have made important discoveries. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania are gorgeous countries where hominid fossils exist. The American Museum of Natural History in New York is a treasure. It has wonderful dioramas and exhibits. The hall of African Mammals and the Mountain Gorilla exhibit by Carl Akeley is awe inspiring. Eastern Africa and Central Africa are awesome. Thank you for reading. Please visit our museums and help to support their existence.