WHY THE TRANSITION TO CUMULATIVE SYMBOLIC c IS RARE

摘要

Boyd and Richerson (1996) observe that while cultural transmission is commonin nature, cumulative culture is rare. We suggest an explanation for the lowprobability of the emergence of human-like cumulative culture, composed ofincreasingly complex form-function associations. The role of naturally selectedsocio-cognitive biases on the origins of human culture is well studied; we focuson the coevolution of those human biases and the cultural environment (Boyd &Richerson, 1985; Odling-Smee, Laland & Feldman, 2003).