Population size predicts technological complexity in Oceania

Recent studies have suggested that the decisions that hunter -gatherers make about the diversity and complexity of their subsistence toolkits are strongly affected by risk of resource failure. However, the risk proxies and samples employed in these studies are potentially problematic. With this in mind, we retested the risk hypothesis with data from hunter-gatherer populations who lived in the northwest coast and plateau regions of the Pacific Northwest during the early contact period. We focused on these populations partly because the northwest coast and plateau differ in ways that can be expected to lead to differences in risk, and partly because of the availability of data for a wide range of risk-relevant variables. Our analyses suggest that the plateau was a more risky environment than the northwest coast. However, the predicted differences in the number and complexity of the populations' subsistence tools were not observed. The discrepancy between our results and those of previous tests of the risk hypothesis is not due to methodological differences. Rather, it seems to reflect an important but hitherto unappreciated feature of the relationship between risk and toolkit structure, namely that the impact of risk is dependent on the scale of the risk differences among populations.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…If risk of resource failure was not the main influence, what was? Based on the findings of Henrich [14] and Kline & Boyd [32], population size is an obvious possibility to investigate. The study reported by Rendell et al [34] suggests that degree of reliance on copying may also be worth considering.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What drives the evolution of hunter–gatherer subsistence technology? A reanalysis of the risk hypothesis with data from the Pacific Northwest

Collard

Buchanan

Morin

et al. 2011

“…These topics are non-exclusive and non-exhaustive, and they are intended to provide an initially broad set of targets for identifying external influences on tool use. In recent years, researchers have explored the relevance of the number of interacting individuals to the maintenance of traditions, showing that an increase in social contacts can allow for new ideas and techniques to be retained and spread more readily in a population [39][40][41][42]. The principle is not restricted to the human lineage [43], and wild orangutans and chimpanzees have been found to display increased complexity, success and frequency in tool use in increasingly social and higher population density settings [44][45][46].…”

Section: (B) Factors Promoting Captivity Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

Haslam

2013

Animals in captive or laboratory settings may outperform wild animals of the same species in both frequency and diversity of tool use, a phenomenon here termed ‘captivity bias’. Although speculative at this stage, a logical conclusion from this concept is that animals whose tool-use behaviour is observed solely under natural conditions may be judged cognitively or physically inferior than if they had also been tested or observed under controlled captive conditions. In turn, this situation creates a potential problem for studies of the behaviour of extinct members of the human family tree—the hominins—as hominin cognitive abilities are often judged on material evidence of tool-use behaviour left in the archaeological record. In this review, potential factors contributing to captivity bias in primates (including increased contact between individuals engaged in tool use, guidance or shaping of tool-use behaviour by other tool-users and increased free time and energy) are identified and assessed for their possible effects on the behaviour of the Late Pleistocene hominin Homo floresiensis . The captivity bias concept provides one way to uncouple hominin tool use from cognition, by considering hominins as subject to the same adaptive influences as other tool-using animals.

“…-Innovations and population growth are expected to be mutually reinforcing. Features of a population including its size, social interactions and established standards [102,105,106] influence the probability of innovation. Innovation may foster ecological opportunity, which in turn promotes population expansion and adaptive radiation [14,107].…”

Section: (A) Searching For and Discovering Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation: an emerging focus from cells to societies

Hochberg

Marquet

Boyd

et al. 2017

Self Cite

Innovations are generally unexpected, often spectacular changes in phenotypes and ecological functions. The contributions to this theme issue are the latest conceptual, theoretical and experimental developments, addressing how ecology, environment, ontogeny and evolution are central to understanding the complexity of the processes underlying innovations. Here, we set the stage by introducing and defining key terms relating to innovation and discuss their relevance to biological, cultural and technological change. Discovering how the generation and transmission of novel biological information, environmental interactions and selective evolutionary processes contribute to innovation as an ecosystem will shed light on how the dominant features across life come to be, generalize to social, cultural and technological evolution, and have applications in the health sciences and sustainability. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies’.