Paper short abstract:

Comparative studies of living primates offer a unique route to the reconstruction of the ancient foundations of the human capacity for culture. I illustrate my systematic comparative analyses with key findings from our recent research concerning primate social learning and cultural transmission

Paper long abstract:

From the Stone Age onwards we have an impressive material record of human cultural evolution, but to reconstruct the social learning processes that underwrote this and the more ancient ancestral foundations of culture we can fortunately call on the directly observable behaviour of other primates. Recent years have provided a wealth of insights through our observational and experimental discoveries. This paper presents a systematic scheme that facilitates multiple comparisons of aspects of culture across living and ancestral species, and that has recently been embraced within cultural anthropology (Jordan 2015*). Illustrating this scheme I highlight key findings from our recent work on social learning and traditions in human and non-human apes. Analysis focuses on three main elements, each further divided into sub-topics. The first element focuses on the patterning of traditions across time and space, including commonalities between human and non-human apes in the existence of local cultures defined by multiple traditions. Like other commonalities identified in these analyses, such patterning is thus inferred to have characterized the scope of culture in our shared ancestors. Differences are also identified, notably in cumulative cultural evolution, rare outwith our own species but spectacular within it. Such differences and commonalities are likewise identified in the second and third elements, that focus in turn on the processes available for cultural transmission, such as imitation and teaching, and the content of cultural variations, such as technology and social customs. *Jordan, P. (2015). Technology as Human Social Tradition: Cultural Transmission among Hunter-Gatherers. Univ. California Press.