Abstract:

Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) has been claimed to be a uniquely human phenomenon pivotal to the biological success of our species. For CCE to emerge, high-fidelity social learning of know-how (form-copying) has been posited as a key mechanism. Contrary to contemporary accounts, some recent studies suggest that animal culture contains cumulative elements and that their behaviour implies form-copying. This assertion, however, remains untested. Here, we show that chimpanzees can use social learning to acquire a skill they do not independently innovate. By teaching chimpanzees how to solve a sequential task (one chimpanzee in each of the five tested groups, N=110), and using Network-Based Diffusion Analysis, we find that 28 naive chimpanzees learned the skill that had remained impossible to acquire individually during the preceding three months of exposure to all necessary materials. Moreover, we find interesting differences in learning opportunities and information transmission across the 5 groups that differ in social cohesiveness. In conjunction, we substantiate recent studies on CCE in animals and present evidence for the hitherto untested hypothesis that social learning in chimpanzees is necessary and sufficient to acquire a new, complex skill after the initial innovation.

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