Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers: Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives PDF
Preview Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers: Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives
Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series Hideaki Terashima Barry S. Hewlett Editors Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series Editedby TakeruAkazawa ResearchInstitute,KochiUniversityofTechnology Kochi782-8502,Japan [email protected] OferBar-Yosef DepartmentofAnthropology,HarvardUniversity Cambridge,Massachusetts02138,USA [email protected] The planned series of volumes will report the results of a major research project entitled “Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans: Testing Evolutionary Models of Learn- ing”, offering new perspectives on the process of replacement and on interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans and hence on the origins of prehistoric modern cultures. Theprojectedvolumeswillpresentthediverseachievementsofresearchactivities,originally designed to implement the project’s strategy, in the fi elds of archaeology, paleoanthropol- ogy, cultural anthropology, population biology, earth sciences, developmental psychology, biomechanics, and neuroscience. Comprehensive research models will be used to integrate thediscipline-specificresearchoutcomesfromthosevariousperspectives.Theseries,aimed mainly at providing a set of multidisciplinary perspectives united under the overarching concept of learning strategies, will include monographs and edited collections of papers focusing on specifi c problems related to the goals of the project, employing a variety of approachestotheanalysisofthenewlyacquireddatasets. EditorialBoard Stanley H. Ambrose (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Kenichi Aoki (Meiji University),EmilianoBruner(CentroNationaldeInvestigacionSobrelaEvolutionHumana), MarcusW.Feldman(StanfordUniversity),BarryS.Hewlett(WashintonStateUniversity), TasukuKimura(UniversityofTokyo),StevenL.Kuhn(UniversityofArizona),Yoshihiro Nishiaki(UniversityofTokyo),NaomichiOgihara(KeioUniversity),DietrichStout(Emory University), Hiroki C. Tanabe (Nagoya University), Hideaki Terashima (Kobe Gakuin University),MinoruYoneda(UniversityofTokyo) More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11816 Hideaki Terashima (cid:129) Barry S. Hewlett Editors Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives Editors HideakiTerashima BarryS.Hewlett FacultyofHumanitiesandSciences DepartmentofAnthropology KobeGakuinUniversity WashingtonStateUniversity Kobe Vancouver Japan Washington USA ReplacementofNeanderthalsbyModernHumansSeries ISBN978-4-431-55995-5 ISBN978-4-431-55997-9 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016953113 #SpringerJapan2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis concerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting,reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublicationdoesnot imply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsand regulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthisbookarebelieved tobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty, expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen made. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerJapanKK PhotoGallery1AkainCentralAfricanRepublic(photosbyBarryHewlett&BonnieHewlett) PhotoGallery2Bakainthe RepublicofCameroon(photosby H.TerashimaandN.Kamei) PhotoGallery3Inuit,Yolngu, andSan(photosbyK.Omura, S.Kubota,andK.Imamura) Preface The RNMH Project and the Study of Social Learning in Modern Hunter–Gatherers An interdisciplinary 5-year project entitled “Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans: Testing Evolutionary Models of Learning” (RNMH) was carried out from 2010 to 2015andfundedbyJapan’sMinistryofEducation,Culture,Sports,Science,andTechnology (Grant-in-AidforScientificResearchonInnovativeAreas,GrantNo.22101001).Withateam ofsocial-culturalandbiologicalanthropologists,developmentalandclinicalpsychologists,a behavioral geneticist, and primatologists to contribute to the project, we investigated the learning abilities and behavior of contemporary hunter–gatherers living in various environments. Marvelous developments in genetics in recent years have revealed that modern humans (Homosapiens,hereafterreferredtosimplyas“Sapiens”)originatedinAfricaaround200ka (thousandyearsago),thenaround100katheybegantospreadoutofAfricaandintoEurasia. They arrived in central and western Europe by 45–47 ka and it was there they came into contactwithNeanderthals.TheNeanderthalswereahighlyadvancedhumanspeciessupposed to have evolved from Homo heidelbergensis (also supposed to be the ancestor of Sapiens). They thrived in Europe for about 300,000 years and adapted to the cold weather during the glacialepoch.However,theyappeartohavedisappearedbyca.40ka,5,000–7,000yearsafter the appearance of Sapiens on the continent. There remains an intriguing mystery: why and how did the Neanderthals go extinct and Sapiens survive? What determined the fates of the twoadvancedhominins?Manyresearchershavebeenstudyingthisproblemfordecadesand exchanging heated debates on the possible causes of the demise of Neanderthals, but no decisiveconclusionhasyetbeenreached. Whenconsideringthecharacteristicsofmodernhumans,weusuallythinkofouradvanced cognitivecapacity—highlyflexibleandcapableofsymbolicthoughtandlanguage.Working memory and the executive function of the human brain have been garnering particular attention recently. Thus, one of the simplest scenarios of the replacement might be that the Sapiens out-competed Neanderthals due to the advantage of cognitive superiority, perhaps allowinggreaterbreadthandefficiencyinhuntingingatheringoradvantagesininterspeciesin combat,although there isnosubstantive evidence ofviolent confrontation orbattlebetween thetwopopulations. Inanycase,thedevelopmentofhighercognitiveabilitieshasdoubtlesslycontributedtothe successofmodernhumans,butthereseemstobelittleevidencetojustifytheassumptionofa suddenincreaseinourcognitiveabilitiesandadvancesinbrainfunction,includinglanguage use, at the time of the replacement. Because the replacement in Europe seems to have happenedsorapidly,itisdoubtfulthatthesecognitiveadvancesoccurredatthattime.From thestandpointofneurobiologyandpopulationgenetics,itwouldbeverydifficultorimpossi- bleforsuchsignificantdifferencesincognitiontoevolveinthespanofjust5000–7000years andpermeatetheentireSapienspopulation. Rather, therapidityofthereplacement suggests ix x Preface that the differences in Sapiens’ cognition evolved earlier, probably before they left Africa. Higher cognitive capacity would had to have evolved prior to its expression in the develop- mentoftangibleinnovationssuchasnewlithicindustries,efficientsubsistencestrategies,and flexibleandeffectivesocialorganization. There have been many factors proposed so far by researchers regarding the differences between the two populations, such as their physical, social, and other adaptive capacities in addition to the cognitive abilities mentioned above. Those factors include differences in averagebodysizeandmusculature,energyexpenditure,birthrateandmortality,demographic patterns, subsistence systems, child development patterns, material culture such as clothing and stone tool technologies, behavioral adaptations to variable environmental conditions, movementofgameanimals,andsocialstructures.Allofthosefactorsinfluencedthecompe- titionforsurvivaltovariousdegrees,butitisdifficulttopointoutanyoneorcombinationof these as the primary catalyst(s) for the replacement. The RNMH project focuses instead on differencesinthetwospecies’capacitiesforlearning,particularlysociallearningandinnova- tive learning, to address the replacement problem. This approach is more parsimonious because learning abilities accountfor many of the possible differences listed above. Knowl- edgeabouthowtoconstructanduseeffectiveclothingandtoolsinvariousenvironments,for example,resultsfromtheaccumulationoftechnicalandecologicalknow-howgatheredover multiple generations. Learning and the social behavior that supports learning are the most importantfactorsinthefoundationofthehumancapacitytodevelopculturaladaptationsfor survivalinvarioustypesofenvironmentsandecologies.RNMHproposesahypothesiscalled the “learning hypothesis” that suggests there were innate differences in learning ability between Neanderthals and Sapiens that might have divided the fatesof the two populations. About 2.5 million years ago, a hominin group known as Homo habilis began to make stone toolsinAfrica.Itwasthebeginningoflithictechnologyandthedistinctiveculturaldevelop- ment of our human ancestors, and since then culture has become the keystone of human adaptationnotonlyintheareaoftechnologybutalsoinsocialandsubsistencedomains.Once cultural behavior was established as a basic human quality, the creation and transmission of culturebecamehumans’preeminenttrait. In our learning hypothesis, learning is sorted into two types: (1) individual learning, i.e., learningonone’sownthroughtrialanderror,drawingsolelyonone’sownideas,and(2)social learning, i.e. learning from others through imitation, being taught, or another process. The Neanderthals had advanced lithic culture, but it was very conservative. They continued to reproduce the sametypesof stone tools for almost 200,000 years, which suggests they were verygoodatsociallearningbutdidnothavemuchabilitytoinnovate.Ontheotherhand,the SapiensinventedvariouslithicindustriesafterarrivinginEurope,whichcouldbeaproductof their aptitude for innovative individual learning. The Neanderthals’ learning behavior, characterized by concentration onsocial learning butnot oninnovation, seems to have been adaptive to places where environmental conditions were rather stable from generation to generation.ThekeydifferencemayhavebeentheflexibilityoflearningstrategiesinSapiens, allowing them to switch between and effectively combine individual and social learning in quickly changing environments. The final phase of the glacial epoch when the replacement occurredwascharacterizedbyaclimatethatfluctuatedwidelyandrapidlybetweencoldand warm, an environment that may have favored Sapiens’ learning strategies over that of Neanderthals. This flexibility would have enabled them to quickly solve adaptive problems andthustomoveswiftlyandsuccessfullyintonovelenvironmentsastheyspreadacrossthe globe. Awiderangeofresearchisneededtotestthelearninghypothesis.IntheRNMHproject,six research teams (A01, A02, B01, B02, C01 and C02) were organized under a steering committeethatgatheredarchaeologists,paleoanthropologists,social-culturalanthropologists, developmentalpsychologists,geneticists,climatologists,paleoecologists,neuroscientists,and Preface xi others for collaborative interdisciplinary research. Each team’s specific objects were as follows: A01:ArchaeologicalresearchofthelearningbehaviorsoftheNeanderthalsandearlymodern humans A02:Researchonhumanlearningbehaviorbasedonfieldworkamonghunter–gatherers B01:Researchonevolutionarymodelsofhumanlearningabilities B02:ReconstructingthedistributionofNeanderthalsandmodernhumansintimeandspacein relationtopastclimaticchanges C01:Reconstructionoffossilcraniabasedonthree-dimensionalsurfacemodelingtechniques C02:Functionalmappingoflearningactivitiesinarchaicandmodernhumanbrains It is indispensable to clarify the learning patterns in ancient and modern hunting and gatheringsocietiesforthedemonstrationofthelearninghypothesis.A01investigatedarchae- ological evidence, artifacts and traces of living sites indicative of past learning behaviors of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic humans. Studies in experimental archaeology and ethno- archaeology were also conducted to interpret ancient traces of learning. A02 investigated contemporary hunter–gatherers’ learning behavior, their social and individual learning, mainlythroughchildren’severyday activities,todiscern thecharacteristic learning behavior ofmodernhumans. The study of hunter–gatherers has been one of the main themes in anthropology since its birthinthenineteenthcentury,andthiswayoflifeisbelievedtobetheclosestapproximation inthecontemporaryworldofancientlivingconditions.Whileitisnotacceptableoraccurate to assert a one-to-one relationship between the lives of contemporary hunter–gatherers with thatofourhumanancestors,itisalsoinappropriatetothinkthattheresearchofhuntingand gathering societies can shed no light on the reconstruction of ancient human conditions. Appropriate and deliberate collaboration between socio-cultural anthropology and archaeol- ogy, paleoanthropology, and other related fields could help reconstruct the behaviors of ancienthumans. Team B01 conducted a theoretical study of the learning hypothesis by describing and analyzingmathematicalevolutionarymodels.Theysimulatedandcomparedvariouslearning strategies to find out what conditions might have led to the expansion of social learners or individual learners in specific societies. Team B02 reconstructed the distribution of the Neanderthals and the Sapiens in time and space during 20–200 ka and also reconstructed theenvironmentsofthosepopulations,includingclimaticconditionsandecologicalsettings, in order to make comparisons of the differences in adaptation of each population to each environment. Thelearninghypothesisdoesnotnecessarilypostulatealargeandsuddencognitivejump; however, there are apparent morphological differences between the crania of Neanderthals andSapiens.Therefore,itiscruciallyimportanttounderstandtherelationshipbetweenbrain morphology and its functions. Team C01 tried to reconstruct the fossil crania and brains of Neanderthalsandancientmodernhumans,andC02utilizedfMRIinanattempttoidentifythe brainsitessupposedtorelatetovariouslearningactivities. Learning behavior has essential importance for human culture and evolution. There is, however,ahugedifferencebetweenthelearningdoneinformalschoolsettingsinmodernized societiesandthatinhuntingandgatheringsocietiesinthepastaswellaspresent.Ourstudyof sociallearninghasbeenconductedmainlyamongcontemporaryhunter–gatherersinvarious natural and social environments and has revealed characteristics crucial to maintaining their culture, livelihood, and joie de vivre. Social-cultural anthropology has methodologically avoided the unilineal cultural evolutionary approach for decades because of the misuse of Darwinian theory, but recent theoretical and methodological developments provide insights intosociallearninginhumansaswellasresearchproblemsoftheRNMHproject.
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