Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution during the Palaeolithic

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction to “Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution During the Palaeolithic”

   • Kenichi Aoki, Alex Mesoudi

   Pages 1-8

3. Factors Limiting the Number of Independent Cultural Traits That Can Be Maintained in a Population

   • Laurel Fogarty, Joe Yuichiro Wakano, Marcus W. Feldman, Kenichi Aoki

   Pages 9-21

4. The Evolution of Culturally Transmitted Teaching Behavior

   • Wataru Nakahashi

   Pages 23-33

5. A Population-Genetics Based Model for Explaining Apparent Cultural Continuity from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Eurasia

   • Yutaka Kobayashi, Seiji Kadowaki, Masaki Naganuma

   Pages 35-44

6. Mobility and Cultural Diversity in Central-Place Foragers: Implications for the Emergence of Modern Human Behavior

   • L. S. Premo

   Pages 45-65

7. Behavioral Modernity and the Cultural Transmission of Structured Information: The Semantic Axelrod Model

   • Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

   Pages 67-83

8. Inferring Learning Strategies from Cultural Frequency Data

   • Anne Kandler, Adam Powell

   Pages 85-101

9. Simulating Geographical Variation in Material Culture: Were Early Modern Humans in Europe Ethnically Structured?

   • Mirna Kovacevic, Stephen Shennan, Marian Vanhaeren, Francesco d’Errico, Mark G. Thomas

   Pages 103-120

10. Transmission of Cultural Variants in the North American Paleolithic

    • Michael J. O’Brien, Briggs Buchanan, Matthew T. Boulanger, Alex Mesoudi, Mark Collard, Metin I. Eren et al.

    Pages 121-143

11. Experimental Studies of Cumulative Culture in Modern Humans: What Are the Requirements of the Ratchet?

    • Christine A. Caldwell

    Pages 145-154

12. Learning in the Acheulean: Experimental Insights Using Handaxe Form as a ‘Model Organism’

    • Stephen J. Lycett, Kerstin Schillinger, Marius Kempe, Alex Mesoudi

    Pages 155-166

13. Back Matter

    Pages 167-169

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This volume is motivated by the desire to explain why Neanderthals were replaced by modern humans, in terms of cultural differences between the two (sub-) species. It provides up-to-date coverage on the theory of cultural evolution as is being used by anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists and psychologists to decipher hominin cultural change and diversity during the Palaeolithic. The contributing authors are directly involved in this effort and the material presented includes novel approaches and findings. Chapters explain how learning strategies in combination with social and demographic factors (e.g., population size and mobility patterns) predict cultural evolution in a world without the printing press, television or the Internet. Also addressed is the inverse problem of how learning strategies may be inferred from actual trajectories of cultural change, for example as seen in the North American Palaeolithic. Mathematics and statistics, a sometimes necessary part of theory, are explained in elementary terms where they appear, with details relegated to appendices. Full citations of the relevant literature will help the reader to further pursue any topic of interest.

• Acheulean Handaxe
• Approximate Bayesian Computation
• Copying Error
• Cultural Evolution
• Cultural Transition Versus Continuity
• Cultural Transmission
• Evolution of Teaching
• Geographical Cultural Variation
• Individual-based Simulation
• Laboratory Experiment
• Moran Model
• Neanderthal to Human Replacement
• North American Palaeolithic
• Residential and Logistical Mobility
• Semantic Axelrod Model
• Social Learning

• Department of Anthropology and Centre for the Coevolution of Biology and Culture, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom

  Alex Mesoudi

• Organization for the Strategic Coordination of Research and Intellectual Properties, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

  Kenichi Aoki

Alex Mesoudi is Reader in Anthropology at Durham University, UK.  He conducts research into human cultural evolution and social learning. He uses a combination of lab experiments and theoretical models to explore the individual-level processes – who copies what, from whom and when – that underlie broad patterns of cultural change. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and one previous book entitled “Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences” (University of Chicago Press, 2011).

Kenichi Aoki is Visiting Professor at Meiji University and Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo. He currently conducts theoretical research on cultural evolution and on the genetic evolution of learning strategies. He has also authored theoretical articles on group selection, gene-culture coevolution and mate choice. He is coeditor of two volumes focusing on the Neanderthal-modern human problem, “Neanderthals and Modern Humans in Western Asia” (Plenum Press, 1998) and “Dynamics of Learning in  Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1 Cultural Perspectives” (Springer 2013).

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