BaYaka Adolescent Boys Nominate Accessible Adult Men as Preferred Spear Hunting Models

Abstract

Humans are selective social learners. In a cultural landscape with many potential models, learners must balance the cost associated with learning from successful models with learning from accessible ones. Using structured interviews, we investigate the model selection biases of Congolese BaYaka adolescent boys learning to hunt with spears (n=24, mage=15.79 years, range: 12-20 years). Results from Social Relations Models suggest that adolescents nominated accessible adult men (closely related kin and neighbors) as preferred spear hunting models. Direct cues for success were not strong predictors for adolescent nomination in the statistical models, despite learners justifying model selection according to teaching and spear hunting skill. Indirect cues including Body Mass Index, age, and cross-domain prestige, were weak predictors for adolescent nomination. We interpret these findings as suggesting that BaYaka spear hunting knowledge is widely shared in the community, with all adult men participating

Costly teaching contributes to the acquisition of spear hunting skill among BaYaka forager adolescents

“…Our previous research demonstrated that while spear hunting is widely practised by BaYaka, they consider it to be an especially complex task [22]. We found that most spear hunting knowledge transmission reportedly occurred from fathers and other closely related male kin, primarily via teaching [22,46]. The present study builds on this work by investigating the types of teaching that contribute to BaYaka spear hunting knowledge acquisition.…”

“…All models included a fixed effect for pupil age in years estimated using the methods outlined in [46,55], and a fixed effect for pupil experience estimated as the total number of prey previously speared by the pupil (log-transformed as log( x + 1)). To facilitate estimation, these variables were z- score standardized.…”

“…Following BaYaka views on maturity, all unmarried male adolescents and young adults ( n = 24) inhabiting the larger two village neighbourhoods at the time of data collection participated in an interview (see [46] for full details). We assessed previous adolescent spear hunting experiences by asking them to list the number and species of animals they had successfully spear hunted in the past.…”

“…All models included a fixed effect for pupil age in years estimated using the methods outlined in [46,55], and a fixed effect royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb Proc. R. Soc.…”

Peer learning and cultural evolution

“…Dutch, British, Italian, and Singaporean adolescents favored the opinions of their peers when complying with rules (Westhoff et al, 2020), subjectively evaluating risk (Knoll et al, 2017) and sharing (Ruggeri et al, 2018). Yet in other areas—such as in estimating tasks where objectively correct responses were possible (Molleman et al, 2019), hunting (Lew‐Levy et al, 2021), and acquiring innovations (Hewlett, 2021)—Indian, BaYaka (Republic of the Congo), Aka (Central African Republic), and Chabu (Ethiopia) adolescents preferred to learn from adults. Together, these findings suggest that adolescent learning depends on the domain being transmitted.…”