Evolution and Human Behavior

Change in the form of evolution: transition from primate to hominid forms of social organization

by Dwight Read

Published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology 29: 1-24, 2005.

In this paper I sketch a model for the transition from biologically to culturally based forms of social organization.... more In this paper I sketch a model for the transition from biologically to culturally based forms of social organization. The impetus for the transition arises from increased individualization among the non-human primates that can be observed as one moves phylogenetically from the Cercopithecoids and Ceboids (Old and New World monkeys) to the hominoids, especially the African apes. Increased individualization introduced a conflict with coherent and stable social integration that was only resolved among the hominid ancestors to modern Homo sapiens by shifting to a cultural/conceptual, rather than a behavioral/biological, basis for social organization. The shift entailed a change from evolution driven by individual fitness to evolution driven by the structural coherency of a conceptual system for social organization; that is, to selection based on group, rather than individual, level traits. Conceptually the transition depended upon the evolution of mental capacities such as a theory of mind and recursion, both of which are absent or occur only occur in minimal form among the non-human primates.

The Descent of Art: The Evolution of Visual Art as Communication via Material Culture

by Larissa Mendoza Straffon

IMAGE Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft No.14 (Ausgabe Juli 2011)

This paper starts out by offering an analysis of three highly topical and influential evolutionary approaches for the... more This paper starts out by offering an analysis of three highly topical and influential evolutionary approaches for the origins of art: The first goes back to Darwin and suggests that art, like the peacock’s tail, was shaped by sexual selection to attract the opposite sex. The second proposal suggests that the main adaptive function of art is to attract and share attention, thereby promoting social cohesion and increasing the overall fitness of the group. The third model advances that throughout evolution, visual art has helped organize mental structure and enhanced cognitive abilities – e.g. memory and learning. By contrasting these models against evidence of artistic behaviour from the archaeological record of the Upper Pleistocene – 127-10,000 years before present, and especially from 100-30,000 BP, it becomes evident that none of them can fully account for the emergence and development of visual art as it is reflected in the archaeology.
Based on that analysis the present work argues that: 1) Many important issues regarding the evolution of visual art in particular have not been attended by existing models, for which an account that is compatible the archaeological record is still lacking. 2) It might be fruitful to pursue an alternative evolutionary scenario for visual art, in which this trait is conceived of as a communication signal in the form of stylistic variation in material culture. 3) An evolutionary model based on communication, material culture, and style can generate preliminary predictions for the emergence and development of visual art in the Pleistocene, some of which will be outlined.

Obesity and sexually selected anorexia nervosa

by George A. Lozano

Lozano, G. A. 2008. Obesity and sexually selected anorexia nervosa. Medical Hypotheses 71: 933-940.

Anorexia nervosa is diagnosed by drastic weight loss, a fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, and, in women,... more Anorexia nervosa is diagnosed by drastic weight loss, a fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, and, in women, three consecutive episodes of amenorrhea. It is often associated with a compulsive need for exercise, a bright outlook on life, and a high level of competitiveness. It afflicts primarily young women in higher socioeconomic strata who are highly competitive and otherwise overachievers. There are three adaptive explanations for anorexia nervosa: the reproductive suppression, the fleeing famine and the pseudo-female hypotheses. Here I present a novel hypothesis, the age-related obesity hypothesis. It posits that the otherwise normal tendency by women to seek a youthful appearance can become maladaptive and lead to anorexia nervosa in environments in which thinness becomes the primary indicator of youth, such as in modern industrialized societies. This hypothesis explains the aforementioned associated features of anorexia nervosa, and its increasing prevalence in western societies. The hypothesis generates several testable predictions: (1) Prevalence of anorexia nervosa across societies should be related to the degree to which thinness is an indicator of youth in a population. (2) Conversely, perceptions of the weight-age relationship should differ among populations depending on the prevalence of anorexia nervosa. (3) Anorectic individuals, or those with the propensity to develop the disease, should have a biased perception of the weight-age relationship. (4) Experimental manipulation of individuals’ perception of the weight-age relationship should affect weight concerns, particularly among anorectic or at-risk individuals. Should the hypothesis be supported it might be used to screen at-risk individuals. Furthermore, it would call for more integrative public health programs that take a comprehensive approach encompassing both obesity and anorexia.

Cultural Phylogenetics of the Tupi Language Family in Lowland South America

by Curtis Atkisson

Background
Recent advances in automated assessment of basic vocabulary lists allow the construction of linguistic... more Background
Recent advances in automated assessment of basic vocabulary lists allow the construction of linguistic phylogenies useful for tracing dynamics of human population expansions, reconstructing ancestral cultures, and modeling transition rates of cultural traits over time.

Methods
Here we investigate the Tupi expansion, a widely-dispersed language family in lowland South America, with a distance-based phylogeny based on 40-word vocabulary lists from 48 languages. We coded 11 cultural traits across the diverse Tupi family including traditional warfare patterns, post-marital residence, corporate structure, community size, paternity beliefs, sibling terminology, presence of canoes, tattooing, shamanism, men's houses, and lip plugs.

Results/Discussion
The linguistic phylogeny supports a Tupi homeland in west-central Brazil with subsequent major expansions across much of lowland South America. Consistently, ancestral reconstructions of cultural traits over the linguistic phylogeny suggest that social complexity has tended to decline through time, most notably in the independent emergence of several nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. Estimated rates of cultural change across the Tupi expansion are on the order of only a few changes per 10,000 years, in accord with previous cultural phylogenetic results in other language families around the world, and indicate a conservative nature to much of human culture.

A complex systems approach to the evolutionary dynamics of human history: the case of the Late Medieval World Crisis

by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

Working Paper for the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR) 2012, Vienna, University Campus, April 10th 2012 (http://www.emcsr.net/symposium-b-evolution-throughout-the-sciences-and-humanities/) (Slides of the presentation here: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Talks/78041/A_complex_systems_approach_to_the_evolutionary_dynamics_of_human_history_the_case_of_the_Late_Medieval_World_Crisis)

„There are few theoretical approaches to which historian respond so negatively as to the explanation of historical... more „There are few theoretical approaches to which historian respond so negatively as to the explanation of historical processes by such theories“, the German historian Rainer Waltz states most accurately in his study on „Theories of Social Evolution and History“; there he also presents two main causes for this rejection: a moral one, the perversion of evolutionary thinking in so-called Social Darwinist theories in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a scientific one, the fear of a biologistic interpretation of human history by adopting evolutionary models (Walz, 2004). This distinguishes historical studies from other social sciences and humanities such as anthropology or sociology and even other historical disciplines such as archaeology, where evolutionary models have become part of the methodological toolkit (Renfrew & Bahn, 2008; for a rare example from the field of history of literature cf. Moretti, 2009).
Although most historians are reluctant to adopt evolutionary models (yet alone in their mathematized or sociobiologist form) for the interpretation of human past (respectively the larger or smaller period of time they are specialised in), terms such as “evolution” and concepts of evolutionary thinking such as “adaption” or “selection” are used in numerous descriptions of historical events and processes, albeit often in a metaphorical way (Walz, 2004). At the same time it is evident that major developments in human history such as the emergence of the human kind itself, of human culture and of complex social structures such as states as well as phenomena of long duration (up to the scale of “Big History” from the Big Bang until present times as it has been attempted in the last decades, Spier 2010) cannot be explained without the help of evolutionary concepts (cf. Blute, 2010; Voland, 2009); but again, these subjects refer mainly to the fields of evolutionary biologists and psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists or (prehistoric) archaeologists (cf. Yoffee, 2004). Some specialists from these disciplines have also tried to adapt such concepts for the entire human history beyond its “beginnings”, but have equally found mixed reception among historians, especially if they try to demonstrate some kind of progress in the development of humanity as for instance Steven Pinker has done most recently in his study on “Why Violence has declined” (Pinker, 2011; see also Atran, 2002; Boyd & Richerson, 2005; Morris, 2010).
In contrast to this (non)-use of evolutionary concepts for historical studies, we intend to demonstrate the benefit of a complex evolutionary approach for the analysis of a specific period of late medieval/early modern history between 1200 and 1500 CE, which has been attributed central importance for the so-called “Rise of the West”, since it saw the beginning of European overseas expansion at its end (cf. Goldstone, 2009; Morris, 2010).
In the “calamitous” 14th century, as Barbara Tuchman called it (1978), the medieval world entered a period of severe crisis in demography, economy, politics and religion. This crisis took hold in all regions, ranging from China in the East to England in the West. Even before the catastrophic pandemic of the Black Death (1346-1352), deteriorating climatic conditions had ended the period of demographic and economic expansion that began in the 10th century (Behringer, 2007; Atwell, 2001; Benedictow, 2004; Brook, 2010).
The local and regional impacts and consequences of these general crisis-laden conditions may have differed; outcomes ranged from actual societal collapse to the emergence of powerful new polities. But these conditions provide a framework for global perspective on this period and allow us to use the 14th century-crisis as a field of “natural experiments of history”, as Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson have called them (Diamond & Robinson, 2011); accordingly, we analyse how similar crisis phenomena influenced the development of societies with different (or similar) traditions, religions, institutions, geographies or ecologies (cf. also Borsch, 2005). In particular, we will analyse and compare five polities in the “Old World”, England, Hungary, Byzantium, Egypt and China, of which three disappeared around the end of this period due to the expansion of the most successful newly emerged Ottoman Empire (Byzantium in 1453, Mamluk Egypt in 1517, Hungary in 1526/1541; cf. also Preiser-Kapeller, 2011).
In order to be able to capture variations and complexities within this sample, we adopt concepts and tools provided by the field of complexity science. We understand complex systems as large networks of individual components, whose interactions at the microscopic level produce “complex” changing patterns of behaviour of the whole system on the macroscopic level. In the last decades, historians and social scientists also tried to use concepts of complexity theory for the description of phenomena in their own fields, but again often only in a “metaphoric” way (Gaddis, 2002; Hatcher & Bailey, 2001). Less frequently, though, historians have tried to make use of the mathematical foundations of complexity theory or of quantitative tools provided by this field (Kiel & Elliott, 1997; Preiser-Kapeller, 2012). Recent scholarship has implemented some of these tools especially for the construction of macro-models of socio-economic development (Goldstone, 1991; Turchin, 2003; Turchin & Nefedov, 2009).
In addition, we combine complexity theory with the analytical framework of “systems theory” developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) in order to capture the interdependencies between politics, economy and religion within a polity and with the political, economic and ecological environment (Luhmann, 1997; Becker & Reinhardt-Becker, 2001; Becker, 2004). Luhmann´s theory is valuable for our analysis in various aspects; it makes us aware of the reduction of environmental and social complexity which is reflected in our historical sources, and it provides a framework to approach complex mechanisms within and the dependencies between various social spheres and their environment. Its evolutionary aspects have also been analysed by Walz (2004). In addition, we employ methods and tools of network analysis, which allow us to capture, analyse and model linkages and cause-effect correlations in society, economy, politics and religion on the macro- and micro-level down to groups and individuals (Gould, 2003; Lemercier, 2005).
Overall, our analytical approach allows us to capture the “diversité véritable” without losing track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”, as Victor Liebermann has called them, 2009) with regard to the transformation of polities and societies and their adaption to this “first world crisis”. Thereby, the value of a framework of evolutionary dynamics for the exploration of human history will be demonstrated

References
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Morris, I. (2010). Why The West Rules For Now: The Patterns of History and what they reveal about the Future. London: Profile Books.
Pinker, S. (2011). The Better Angels of our Nature. Why Violence has declined. London: Viking.
Preiser-Kapeller, J. (2012). Complex historical dynamics of crisis: the case of Byzantium. In: A. Suppan (Ed.). Krise und Transformation (in print). Vienna: Austrian Academy Press (pre-print online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Papers/506625/Complex_historical_dynamics_of_crisis_the_case_of_Byzantium).
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Adeptos a la Adaptación: tres propuestas clasicas para la arqueología y una evaluación

by Vivian Scheinsohn

Published in Revista Antípoda 13, December 2011
In Spanish

Thirty years after Kirch (1980) seminal paper, this work reviews the role of adaptation in contemporary archaeological... more Thirty years after Kirch (1980) seminal paper, this work reviews the role of adaptation in contemporary archaeological thought and discusses its use. In this process, the use of this concept in biology will be examined as well as its use in archaeology, as it is incorporated in processualism, selectionism and Dual Inheritance theories. The author concludes with an evaluation of its current potential.

Natural-trap ursid mortality and the Kurten response

by Steve Wolverton

Wolverton 2006

Ursid mortality data have long been used to evaluate associations between cave-bear remains (Ursus deningeri and U.... more Ursid mortality data have long been used to evaluate associations between cave-bear remains (Ursus deningeri and U. spelaeus) and hominin (Homo sp.) remains. Typically, such ursid assemblages produce mortality patterns that indicate that juvenile and old bears died during hibernation, a pattern that is used to suggest that humans and bears occupied the same caves at different times. However, a different kind of mortality pattern can also be used to suggest human influence on cave bears, particularly under circumstances when bears and humans compete for habitat. In particular, data from Lawson Cave and Jerry Long Cave, Missouri indicate that young-adult North American black bears (Ursus americanus) are prone to capture in natural-trap caves. Similar faunal data from Sima de los Huesos in Spain, where cave-bear and hominin remains are found in the same deposit, might also suggest that the bears died from falling into a natural trap. It is concluded that mortality analysis of ursid remains from caves is a useful tool with which to evaluate accumulation histories of cave deposits and relations between humans, artifacts, and cave-bear remains. In particular, ursid mortality data are relevant to the Kurtén Response, a hypothesis reiterated in the recent literature that implicates human encroachment on ursid habitat (e.g., cave den sites) as a potential cause in cave-bear extinction.

Caves, Ursids, and Artifacts: A Natural-Trap Hypothesis

by Steve Wolverton

Wolverton 2001

European cave deposits often contain the remains of extinct cave bears (Ursuss spelaeus and U deningeri) and artifacts... more European cave deposits often contain the remains of extinct cave bears (Ursuss spelaeus and U deningeri) and artifacts or human remains. Two twentieth-century explanations for the apparent association of the remains and artifacts are: 1) late Pleistocene hominids preyed upon the bears; and 2) late Pleistocene hominids and bears occupied the caves at different times thus making the remains and artifacts appear behaviorally associated when they are not. The former option is dismissed in most cases based on taphonomic criteria and ursid mortality data. In caves with multiple entrances-particularly cases where at least one entrance is a vertical shaft comprising a natural trap-another option serves to better explain the presence of ursid remains and artifacts in the same deposits. Ursid-bone assemblages created by accidental entrapment of bears in vertical shafts result in a distinctive mortality pattern. This pattern reveals proportionally more prime adult individuals than expected in a living population. A consideration of North American black bear (U americanis) physiology and behavior reveals that this distinctive mortality pattern should be expected from natural trap assemblages. Thus, in assemblages from caves with horizontal and vertical entrances, mortality data can be used to decipher whether ursids died from natural hibernation deaths, human predation, or accidental falls through vertical shafts.

The causes and scope of political egalitarianism during the Last Glacial: a multi-disciplinary perspective

by Brian Stewart

2010. Published in 'Biology and Philosophy' 25:319-346. Co-authored with Doron Shultziner, Thomas Stevens, Martin Stevens, Rebecca J. Hannagan and Giulia Saltini-Semerari.

This paper reviews and synthesizes emerging multi-disciplinary evidence toward understanding the development of social... more This paper reviews and synthesizes emerging multi-disciplinary evidence toward understanding the development of social and political organization in the Last Glacial. Evidence for the prevalence and scope of political egalitarianism is reviewed and the biological, social, and environmental influences on this mode of human organization are further explored. Viewing social and political organization in the Last Glacial in a much wider, multi-disciplinary context provides the footing for coherent theory building and hypothesis testing by which to further explore human political systems. We aim to overcome the claim that our ancestors’ form of social organization is untestable, as well as counter a degree of exaggeration regarding possibilities for sedentism, population densities, and hierarchical structures prior to the Holocene with crucial advances from disparate disciplines.

The tortoise and the ostrich egg: projecting the home base hypothesis into the 21st century

by Brian Stewart

2011 in Sept, J. and Pilbeam, D., 'Casting the net wide: papers in honor of Glynn Isaac and his studies on human origins', pp. 254-278. Co-authored with John Parkington and John W. Fisher Jr.

The giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris: Modelling the bone-cracking behavior of an extinct carnivore

by Juan Manuel Jiménez-Arenas

Co-authored with Paul Palmqvist, Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro, Juan A. Pérez-Claros, Vanessa Torregrosa, Borja Figueirido, M. Patrocinio Espigares, Sergio Ros-Montoya, Miquel De Renzi

The giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris was the largest bone-cracking carnivore that ever existed. With the mass of... more The giant hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris was the largest bone-cracking carnivore that ever existed. With the mass of a lioness, it had massive limbs with shortened distal bones and a heavy, powerfully built mandible with robust, well-developed premolars. All these features re␣ect its adaptation for dismem- bering ungulate carcasses, transporting large pieces of them without dragging to the denning site and fracturing bones. This paper estimates the relative contribution of hunting and scavenging to the diet of this extinct hyena, using a combined biomechanical and taphonomic approach. Analysis of the bone- cracking behavior of P. brevirostris was based on the abundance of skeletal elements in the large mammals assemblage from Venta Micena (Guadix-Baza basin, southeast Spain), a locality currently interpreted as an early Pleistocene hyena den. The distribution of major limb bones of ungulates among complete elements, isolated epiphyses and diaphyses were analyzed using contingency tables and correspondence analysis. Results obtained showed that the bones with greater marrow contents (femur, humerus and tibia) were preferentially fractured by the hyenas, while those others with less nutritional value (radius and metapodials) were better represented as complete elements in the assemblage. The quantitative analysis of the preservational state of skeletal elements allowed testing speci␣c patterns of bone modi␣cation by the giant hyenas, such as a proximodistal sequence of consumption for humerus and tibia, thus revealing the highly specialized bone-cracking behavior of P. brevirostris. Regression equations adjusted with modern carnivores for body size on craniodental and postcranial measurements provide an average estimate of mass of w110 kg for the giant hyena. The high moment arms for masseter and temporalis muscles indicate a substantial strength for bone fracturing with the well-developed premolar teeth. Jaw depth provided resistance against dorsoventral loads during bone-cracking activi- ties. However, the moment arm of resistance for an object positioned at the canines reveals a loss of bite strength compared with spotted hyenas and thus less predatory abilities. These results are in agreement with the scavenging niche deduced for P. brevirostris from taphonomic analysis.

Evolutionary Aesthetics and Sexual Selection in the Evolution of Rock Art Aesthetic - Varella, Souza & Ferreira, 2011 Rock Art Research

by Marco Varella

This paper was accepted for comment treatment, it has received seven stimulating comments for which we authors made a reply called "Approaches, concepts, universalities and sexual selection on the evolution of palaeoart appreciation". Everything is at the same file.

This research was supported by the Brazilian funding
agency CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico
e Tecnológico). We authors are grateful to Thomas Heyd
and John Clegg for helpful comments on our core idea, to
Jerry Hogan for his helpful comments and review of earlier
and final versions of this manuscript, and to RAR referees
Duncan Caldwell, Ben Watson and an anonymous reviewer
for being very supportive, giving many helpful comments
and indicating detailed instructions on how to improve this
paper. This research was presented in earlier versions as
a talk during the Rock Art Aesthetic session at the IFRAO
Global Rock Art Congress in São Raimundo Nonato, Piauí
State, Brazil.


Marco Antônio Corrêa Varella, Altay Alves Lino de Souza
and José Henrique Benedetti Piccoli Ferreira
Laboratory of Comparative Psychology and Ethology
Department of Experimental Psychology
Institute of Psychology
Universidade de São Paulo
Brazil
E-mails: macvarella@usp.br, altayals@gmail.com,
jh.benedetti@gmail.com

This theoretical proposal applies evolutionary aesthetic, animal signalling and sexual selection to understand our... more This theoretical proposal applies evolutionary aesthetic, animal signalling and sexual selection to understand our artistic cognition, especially rock art aesthetics. Iconographic motifs, universally found in rock art, indicate which set of pre-artistic aesthetic psychological bias has been co-opted to catch the viewer’s attention. The co-evolutionary process of sexual selection could have shaped the design features of both rock art images and their aesthetic cognition by conferring mutual benefits on both producers, via manipulation, and receivers, via information extraction. We show some strategic techniques identified in rock art and art that indicate the occurrence of this co-evolution between producers and receivers.

Approaches, concepts, universalities and sexual selection on the evolution of palaeoart appreciation. Commentary. Authors' reply

by Marco Varella

Why aren't we smarter already?

by Thomas Hills

co-authored with Ralph Hertwig

Pharmacological enhancers of cognition promise a bright new future for humankind: more focus, more willpower, and... more Pharmacological enhancers of cognition promise a bright new future for humankind: more focus, more willpower, and better memory, with applications ranging from education to military combat. Underlying such promises is a linear, more-is-better vision of cognition that makes intuitive sense. This vision is at odds, however, with our understanding of cognition’s evolutionary origins. The mind has evolved under constraints and as such represents a delicate balance among them. Evidence of the trade-offs that have shaped cognition include (1) inverted U-shaped performance curves commonly found in response to pharmacological interventions and (2) unintended side effects of enhancement on other traits. Taking an evolutionary perspective, we frame the above two set of findings in terms of within-task (exemplified by optimal control problems) and between-task trade-offs (associated with a gain-loss asymmetry), respectively. With this framework, psychological science can provide much needed guidance to enhancement development, a field that still lacks a theoretical foundation.

Do I have more free will than you do?

by Brian Earp

Earp, B. D. (2011). Do I have more free will than you do? An unexpected asymmetry in intuitions about personal freedom. New School Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 21, 34-40.

The present research explores the relationship between moral evaluations and intuitions about the causes of human... more The present research explores the relationship between moral evaluations and intuitions about the causes of human behavior, in particular freedom of the will. Two studies test for a self-serving bias in intuitions about free will. Study 1 explores whether individuals may seek to exculpate themselves from wrongdoing by denying free will, while justifying blame of others by endorsing free will. Study 2 explores whether individuals may justify personal failures by denying free will, while taking credit for personal successes by endorsing free will. In neither study do the data show the predicted differences between conditions. However, an unexpected finding is reported. By pooling the data from both experiments and collapsing across conditions, it is shown that participants give greater endorsement of free will whenever actions are described from a first-person, instead of third-person, perspective—a tentative “I have more free will than you do” effect. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed, as are avenues for further research on this topic.

Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior

by Adam Powell

Words Can Speak Louder Than Actions

by Robert H. Gargett

Weak links and scene cliques in Shakespeare's plays.

by Matthew Hudson

Stiller, J. and Hudson, M., 2005. Weak links and scene cliques in Shakespeare's plays. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology. 3, 57-73.

Forms of narrative such as drama allow for the transmission of information to large audiences. The drama therefore has... more Forms of narrative such as drama allow for the transmission of information to large audiences. The drama therefore has to contain structural elements that are easily accessible to the viewer. The structures of 10 plays by William Shakespeare were studied and shown to exhibit small world properties, in that any node (character) in a network is connected to any other node by only a few intermediate steps. It is suggested that the number of characters that are present within each scene reflect similar numbers to those of observed human support cliques. This might reflect possible cognitive limits, as when there is an increase in the number of characters within a play rather than add new characters to a scene Shakespeare has instead created new scenes, thus maintaining the scene clique size. These scene cliques are connected by a series of weak links (keystone characters) that maintain the flow of information within a growing network of characters. It is suggested that this might provide a useful basis for further research into the structure, purpose and development of drama.

Toward an experimental exploration of the complexity of human social interactions

by Nichola Raihani

The evolutionary future of Homo sapiens comodus

by George Clarke