Levallois Core, Late Pleistocene Algeria. Technological features dating back 600,000 years (phase 3). Credit: Watt, Emma. 2020. Levallois Core, Algeria. Stone Tool Museum. Retrieved June 10, 2024. Source: une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29
Each of us is the product of thousands of generations passed down uninterruptedly. Our cultures and technologies today are the result of cultural knowledge accumulated and reintegrated over millennia.
But when did our earliest ancestors begin to make the connections that set us apart from other primates, building on the knowledge of others? Cumulative culture, the accumulation of technological changes and improvements over generations, has allowed humans to adapt to diverse environments and challenges. But it is unclear when during human evolution it first developed.
A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Arizona State University researcher Charles Perot and doctoral graduate Jonathan Page concludes that humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge through social learning about 600,000 years ago.
“We, the human species, Homo sapiens, have adapted well to ecological conditions that require us to solve many different kinds of problems, from tropical forests to Arctic tundra. Accumulated culture is key because it allows humans to build on and recombine solutions from previous generations and develop new complex solutions to problems very quickly,” Perrault said.
“As a result, our culture is too complex for any individual to invent on their own, from technological problems and solutions to institutional organization,” Perreault said, a research scientist at the Institute for Human Origins and an associate professor in the Department of Human Evolution and Social Change.
Acheulean Knife, Algeria. Phase 2, near the baseline. Credit: Currie, Michael. 2020. Acheulean Knife, Koubi Fora, Morocco. Stone Tool Museum. Retrieved June 10, 2024. Source: une.pedestal3d.com/r/JMVajqyz29
To investigate when this technological transition began, Page and Perrault analyzed changes in the complexity of stone tool-making techniques across the archaeological record over the past 3.3 million years, probing the origins of accumulated culture.
As a benchmark for the complexity of stone tool technology achievable without cumulative culture, the researchers analyzed techniques used by non-human primates such as chimpanzees, as well as stone tool-making experiments involving inexperienced human flint makers and random flakes.
The researchers classified the complexity of stone tool technologies by the number of steps (PUs or procedural units) included in each tool-making sequence, and their results suggest that stone tool-making sequences remained within a baseline range (1-6 PUs) during the time when Australopithecus and the earliest Homo species lived, from about 3.3 million years ago to 1.8 million years ago.
From about 1.8 million years ago to 600,000 years ago, production sequences overlapped with and began to slightly exceed the baseline of complexity (4–7 PU), but after about 600,000 years ago, production sequence complexity increased rapidly (5–18 PU).
“By about 600,000 years ago, humans began to rely on unusually complex technologies, and that complexity continued to increase rapidly after that. These two findings are consistent with what we would expect to see in humans relying on cumulative culture,” said Page, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Missouri and a postdoctoral student at Arizona State University.
Oldowan core, Koobi Fora, Kenya (Phase 1, below baseline). Credit: Currie, Michael. 2020. Oldowan core, Koobi Fora. Stone Tools Museum. Retrieved June 10, 2024. Source: une.pedestal3d.com/r/DGHMTdkn4_
Tool-based foraging may have been the earliest catalyst for the evolution of cumulative culture. Early humans between 3.4 million and 2 million years ago likely relied on tool-based foraging strategies to obtain meat, bone marrow, and organs, which led to changes in brain size, lifespan, and biology that provided the foundation for cumulative culture.
Although other forms of social learning may have influenced tool making, it is not until the Middle Pleistocene that there is evidence of a rapid increase in technological complexity and the development of other types of new technologies.
The Middle Pleistocene also shows consistent evidence of the controlled use of fire, hearths, and living spaces, which were probably essential elements in the development of a cumulative culture. Other types of complex technology also developed during the Middle Pleistocene, including wooden buildings constructed from logs cut with handled tools made of stone blades attached to wood or bone handles.
All this suggests that a cumulative culture arose early in the Middle Pleistocene, possibly predating the divergence of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Further information: Page, Jonathan, 3.3 Million Years of Stone Tool Complexity Suggests Cumulative Culture Beginnings in the Middle Pleistocene, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2319175121. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2319175121
Courtesy of Arizona State University
Citation: Cumulative Culture Origins in Human Evolution – Researchers Identify Contributions to Today’s Culture and Technology (June 17, 2024) Retrieved July 7, 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-cumulative-culture-human-evolution-contributions.html
This document is subject to copyright. It may not be reproduced without written permission, except for fair dealing for the purposes of personal study or research. The content is provided for informational purposes only.
