Abstract:

Archeological findings indicate that around 400KYA-200KYA in the eastern levant, ancient humans followed a new type of habitation style, basecamp cave dwelling. This entailed multiple small groups living in the same environment for long stretches of time, foraging for resources in different parts of the environment during the day and meeting back at the cave for shelter. We suggest that this habitation pattern could support the gradual development of complex social learning skills. Initially, basecamp habitation allowed tracking different group members’ expertise in resource attainment, and the development of prestige bias. In addition, based on their knowledge of the common environment, individuals could infer where other individuals foraged that day, and gain counterfactual information about the richness of the environment. Intentional signaling using distinct local markers could increase information transmission fidelity. Using simulations of computational models, we show that material benefits gradually increase with the level of sophistication of social learning strategies. This increase was more distinct in larger environments with multiple foraging opportunities. Our work highlights the way habitation patterns and physical settings which humans occupied could support the development of complex social learning skills, and the way environmental characteristics could serve as a common framework for communication.

Speaker's social media:

@uhertz