IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms9398.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The foundations of the human cultural niche

Author

Listed:
  • Maxime Derex

    (Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University)

  • Robert Boyd

    (Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University
    School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University)

Abstract

Technological innovations have allowed humans to settle in habitats for which they are poorly suited biologically. However, our understanding of how humans produce complex technologies is limited. We used a computer-based experiment, involving humans and learning bots, to investigate how reasoning abilities, social learning mechanisms and population structure affect the production of virtual artefacts. We found that humans’ reasoning abilities play an important role in the production of innovations, but that groups of individuals are able to produce artefacts that are more complex than any isolated individual can produce during the same amount of time. We show that this group-level ability to produce complex innovations is maximized when social information is easy to acquire and when individuals are organized into large and partially connected populations. These results suggest that the transition to behavioural modernity could have been triggered by a change in ancestral between-group interaction patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Maxime Derex & Robert Boyd, 2015. "The foundations of the human cultural niche," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9398
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9398
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9398
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms9398?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Molho, Catherine & Peña, Jorge & Singh, Manvir & Derex, Maxime, 2024. "Do institutions evolve like material technologies?," TSE Working Papers 24-1543, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. E. Reindl & A. L. Gwilliams & L. G. Dean & R. L. Kendal & C. Tennie, 2020. "Skills and motivations underlying children’s cumulative cultural learning: case not closed," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Devon Brackbill & Damon Centola, 2020. "Impact of network structure on collective learning: An experimental study in a data science competition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-13, September.
    4. Kobayashi, Yutaka & Ohtsuki, Hisashi & Wakano, Joe Y., 2016. "Population size vs. social connectedness — A gene-culture coevolutionary approach to cumulative cultural evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 87-95.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9398. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.