7.3 Culture as a Behavioral Adaptation

One of the most successful behavioral adaptations in evolutionary history is human culture. As our early ancestors began to develop tools to process food, our brains began to grow at an exponential rate (see Chapter 4 for a complete discussion). As a result, our tools became more sophisticated, hunting and foraging became strategic, and we began to communicate and cooperate in increasingly complex social groups. This feedback loop between our brains and our culture continues today. Our ability to learn and problem solve is the result of a structural adaptation – increased brain size – and its promotion of our behavioral adaptation to learn and overcome.

There are arguments that suggest behavioral modernity arose in humans during the Paleolithic. This suite of behavioral and cognitive traits, such as social norms, language, and cooperation with those to whom we are not genetically related is suggested to be what distinguishes Homo sapiens from other hominins, primates, and even other Homo species. By emphasizing human uniqueness from other primates, the concept of behavioral modernity also seeks to separate humans from other animals as the only species with culture. However, as seen in the video at the end of the previous section, these traits are not as uniquely human as once thought.

Many of the traits previously ascribed to humans are now found in other species. Tool use is common in chimpanzees and can be shared via learning and demonstration between individuals. Corvids (a group that includes crows, ravens, and magpies) also use tools, even building multi-part tools to achieve their goals. Research into sparrow songs find that learning bias in chick development may contribute to cultural evolution of song in subsequent generations. In fact, research has demonstrated that many species have culture, especially if defined as behavior(s) learned from others and accumulated within a population. Andrew Whiten (2021) wrote: “This cultural form of inheritance was once thought specific to humans, but research over the past 70 years has instead revealed it to be widespread in nature, permeating the lives of a diversity of animals, including all major classes of vertebrates. Recent studies suggest that culture’s reach may extend also to invertebrates – notably, insects.”

What does seem to remain uniquely human, for now, is the acute ability to accumulate and transmit knowledge through intentional social learning (e.g., teaching) and the written accumulation of knowledge. In numerous cultures around the world, children are expected to learn and assist others when necessary. Only in humans are these teaching efforts collaborative and group oriented. Whether a group of young men learning to hunt in Tanzania, or children in daycare learning the social rules of politeness, few if any other species coordinate their cultural transmission throughout the social group in this way.

How does the ultra-cultural ape, humans, use this adaptation? In many ways, we extend our lifetimes, our strength, our speed, and our ability to obtain and maintain knowledge. Medical advances can provide lifesaving organ transplants and c-section deliveries of babies who may otherwise struggle through the birth canal. Mechanical travel allows us to go faster (via car) or further (via airplane) than we could ever imagine by walking or running alone. We have enhanced our strength for work through machines like forklifts and trash compactors. And we have improved our ability to teach and share cumulative culture via writing, books, computers, and social media.

We may not be the only species with culture, but we have certainly done much to see how far culture can take us.

Watch this SciShow video where Hank Green explains neuroplasticity and our amazing ability to create and learn.