The founder sociality hypothesis

Brooks, James; Yamamoto, Shinya

doi:10.1002/ece3.8143

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 100 publications

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“…This includes smaller skulls/brains (as compared to archaic humans); reduced hair; neotenic features (e.g., extended childhood and increased playing behavior); and particularly, reduced levels of reactive aggression (Shea, 1989;Leach, 2003;Somel et al, 2009;Zollikofer and Ponce de León, 2010;Plavcan, 2012;Fukase et al, 2015;Stringer, 2016). Diverse factors have been hypothesized to trigger HSD, like the rise of co-parenting, the advent of community living, changes in our foraging ecology, climate deterioration, and/or the colonization of new environments (Pisor and Surbeck, 2019;Brooks and Yamamoto, 2021;Spikins et al, 2021). All in all, these factors might have promoted a selection toward less reactive and more prosocial behaviors, thereby instilling in humans the constellation of physical, behavioral, and cognitive changes characteristic to domestication.…”

Section: Human Self-domestication and Language Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (co)evolution of language and music under human self-domestication

Benítez‐Burraco¹,

Nikolsky²

2022

Preprint

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Together with language, music is perhaps our most distinctive behavioral trait. As for language, different hypotheses have been proposed to explain why only humans perform music and how this ability might have evolved in the species. In this paper, we advance a new model of music evolution that builds on the self-domestication view of human evolution, according to which the human phenotype is, at least in part, the outcome of a process similar to mammal domestication, triggered by a reduction in reactive aggression responses resulting from environmental changes. In the paper, we specifically argue that self-domestication can account for some of the cognitive changes, and particularly for the behaviors conducive for the complexification of music through a cultural mechanism. We hypothesize 4 stages in the evolution of music under self-domestication forces: collective proto-music, private timbre-oriented music, small group pitch-oriented music, and finally, collective tonally-organized music. This line of development parallels what has been hypothesized for languages. It encompasses the diversity of music types and genres described worldwide. Overall, music diversity emerges in a gradual fashion under the effects of our enhanced abilities for cultural niche construction, as shaped by the progressive decrease in reactive (i.e., impulsive, triggered by fear or anger) aggression and the increase in proactive (i.e., premeditated, goal-directed) aggression.

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Section: Human Self-domestication and Language Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (co)evolution of language and music under human self-domestication

Benítez‐Burraco¹,

Nikolsky²

2022

Preprint

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“…recent specimens; childish facial features; reduced body hair; prolonged childhood; increased playing behavior, and particularly, a less aggressive behavior. Among the factors commonly cited in the literature that might have triggered HSD, one finds the rise of community living, the advent of co-parenting, changes in our foraging ecology, the increasingly harsh environments resulting from the Quaternary Glaciation, and/or the colonization of new environments (Pisor and Surbeck, 2019;Brooks and Yamamoto, 2021;Spikins et al, 2021).…”

Section: Human Self-domestication and The Evolution Of Language(s)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The gradual coevolution of syntactic combinatorics and categorization under the effects of human self-domestication: a proposal

Benítez‐Burraco¹,

Hoshi²,

Progovac³

2022

Preprint

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This paper builds on a previous proposal that the gradual emergence of syntax in language evolution was engaged in a feedback loop with the effects of Human Self-Domestication (HSD), both processes contributing to enhanced connectivity in the cortico-striatal networks, which is the mechanism for suppressing reactive physical aggression, the hallmark of HSD, but also the mechanism of cross-modality, relevant for metaphoricity and syntax more generally. In this paper, we aim to bridge the gap between these neurobiological changes and the changes facilitated, or even promoted, by the gradual complexification of grammars. We propose that increased cross-modality associated with the brain modifications described above would have enabled and supported, more specifically, a feedback loop between categorization abilities relevant for vocabulary building and the gradual emergence of syntactic structure, including the core combinatorial operation in natural languages, such as Merge. In brief, an enhanced categorization ability not only brings about more distinct categories, but also a critical number of tokens in each category necessary for Merge to take off in a systematic and productive fashion; in turn, the benefits of expressive capabilities brought about by productive Merge encourage more items to be categorized, and more categories to be formed, thus further potentiating categorization abilities, and with it, syntax again. The need to amass a critical number of words before breaking into syntax is clearly demonstrated in language acquisition studies. It is also clear that without breaking into syntax there is no advancement in language or categorization abilities. Animal communication abilities, including those of trained animals, seem to stop short of this critical number, which, in our analysis, provides a rationale for why they do not develop productive syntax, or human-like categorization abilities. In addition to evidence from linguistics, language acquisition, and comparative studies, we also build on evidence from biology, neuroscience, paleoanthropology, and clinical linguistics.

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“…The founder sociality hypothesis (Brooks and Yamamoto, 2021) propose that the social dynamics of founder populations in novel and newly available environments can have critical effects in shaping species' sociality and can produce long-lasting changes in social structure and behavior. As Brooks and Yamamoto (2021) write, "[f]or founder populations which expand into an underexploited niche separated from the parent population, the necessity of bond formation with strangers, lack of clear territories, and initial abundance of resources can lead to altered initial social dynamics" impacting subsequent evolutionary trajectories.…”

Section: Linguistic/cognitive Phenotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loquens : A characterization of “Hunter-Gatherers of Words”

Boeckx¹

2022

Preprint

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This paper makes three interconnected claims: (i) the "human condition" cannot be captured by evolutionary narratives that reduce it to a recent 'cognitive modernity', nor by narratives that eliminates all cognitive differences between us and out closest extinct relatives, (ii) signals from paleogenomics, especially coming from deserts of introgression but also from signatures of positive selection point to the importance of mutations that may underlie temperamental differences, which impact cultural evolutionary trajectories in specific ways, and (iii) these trajectories in turn affect the language phenotypes. In particular, they influence the development of symbolic systems and the flexible ways in which symbols combine.

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The founder sociality hypothesis

Cited by 15 publications

References 100 publications

The (co)evolution of language and music under human self-domestication

The (co)evolution of language and music under human self-domestication

The gradual coevolution of syntactic combinatorics and categorization under the effects of human self-domestication: a proposal

Loquens : A characterization of “Hunter-Gatherers of Words”

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