Skip to content

Research at St Andrews

University > Research portal > Research publications > Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-m...

Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

DOI

Open Access permissions

Open

Links

Author(s)

T. J. H. Morgan, N. T. Uomini, L. E. Rendell, L. Chouinard-Thuly, S. E. Street, H. M. Lewis, C. P. Cross, C. Evans, R. Kearney, I. de la Torre, A. Whiten, K. N. Laland

School/Research organisations

Abstract

Hominin reliance on Oldowan stone tools—which appear from 2.5 mya and are believed to have been socially transmitted—has been hypothesized to have led to the evolution of teaching and language. Here we present an experiment investigating the efficacy of transmission of Oldowan tool-making skills along chains of adult human participants (N=184) using five different transmission mechanisms. Across six measures, transmission improves with teaching, and particularly with language, but not with imitation or emulation. Our results support the hypothesis that hominin reliance on stone tool-making generated selection for teaching and language, and imply that (i) low-fidelity social transmission, such as imitation/emulation, may have contributed to the ~700,000 year stasis of the Oldowan technocomplex, and (ii) teaching or proto-language may have been pre-requisites for the appearance of Acheulean technology. This work supports a gradual evolution of language, with simple symbolic communication preceding behavioural modernity by hundreds of thousands of years.
Close
More...

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number6029
Number of pages8
JournalNature Communications
Volume6
DOIs
StatePublished - 13 Jan 2015
Additional links

    Research areas

  • Tool-use, Human evolution, Social transmission, Language evolution

Discover related content
Find related publications, people, projects and more using interactive charts.

View graph of relations

Related by author

  1. Social learning strategies: bridge-building between fields

    Kendal, R., Boogert, N., Rendell, L., Laland, K. N., Webster, M. & Jones, P. Jul 2018 In : Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 22, 7, p. 651-665 15 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article

  2. Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests

    Miu, E., Gulley, N., Laland, K. N. & Rendell, L. 13 Jun 2018 In : Nature Communications. 9, 8 p., 2321

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  3. Human mate-choice copying is domain-general social learning

    Street, S. E., Morgan, T. J. H., Thornton, A., Brown, G. R., Laland, K. N. & Cross, C. P. 29 Jan 2018 In : Scientific Reports. 8, 1715

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  4. Sex differences in confidence influence patterns of conformity

    Cross, C. P., Brown, G. R., Morgan, T. J. H. & Laland, K. N. Nov 2017 In : British Journal of Psychology. 108, 4, p. 655-667

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  5. Social Evolution and the collective brain

    Laland, K. N. & Rendell, L. Sep 2017 In : Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 32, 9, p. 625-626 2 p.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review

Related by journal

  1. Nature Communications (Journal)

    Gardner, A. (Reviewer)
    Feb 2018

    Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Peer review of manuscripts

Related by journal

  1. Hidden structural and chemical order controls lithium transport in cation-disordered oxides for rechargeable batteries

    Ji, H., Urban, A., Kitchaev, D. A., Kwon, D-H., Artrith, N., Ophus, C., Huang, W., Cai, Z., Shi, T., Kim, J. C., Kim, H. & Ceder, G. 5 Feb 2019 In : Nature Communications. 10, 9 p., 592

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  2. Highly emissive excitons with reduced exchange energy in thermally activated delayed fluorescent molecules

    Pershin, A., Hall, D., Lemaur, V., Sancho-Garcia, J-C., Muccioli, L., Zysman-Colman, E., Beljonne, D. & Olivier, Y. 5 Feb 2019 In : Nature Communications. 10, 5 p., 597

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  3. Light sheet microscopy with acoustic sample confinement

    Yang, Z., Cole, K. L. H., Qiu, Y., Somorjai, I. M. L., Wijesinghe, P., Nylk, J., Cochran, S., Spalding, G. C., Lyons, D. A. & Dholakia, K. 8 Feb 2019 In : Nature Communications. 10, 8 p., 669

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  4. C9ORF72 repeat expansion causes vulnerability of motor neurons to Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptor-mediated excitotoxicity

    Thangaraj Selvaraj , B. , Livesey , M. , Zhao , C. , Gregory , J. , James, O. , Cleary, E. , Chouhan, A. K. , Gane, A. , Perkins, E. , Dando, O. , Lillico, S. , Lee, Y-B. , Nishimura, A. , Poreci, U. , Thankamony, S. , Pray, M. , Vasistha, N. , Magnani, D. , Borooah, S. , Burr, K. & 12 others Story, D., McCampbell, A., Shaw, C., Kind, P., Aitman, T. J., Whitelaw, B., Wilmut, I., Smith, C., Miles, G. B., Hardingham, G., Wyllie, D. & Chandran, S. 24 Jan 2018 In : Nature Communications. 9, 14 p., 347

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

  5. A DHODH inhibitor increases p53 synthesis and enhances tumor cell killing by p53 degradation blockage

    Ladds, M. J. G. W. , van Leeuwen, I. M. M. , Drummond, C. J. , Chu, S. , Healy, A. R. , Popova, G. , Pastor-Fernández, A. , Mollick, T. , Darekar, S. , Sedimbi, S. K. , Nekulova, M. , Sachweh, M. C. C. , Campbell, J. , Higgins, M. , Tuck, C. , Popa, M. , Safont, M. M. , Gelebart, P. , Fandalyuk, Z. , Thompson, A. M. & 26 others Svensson, R., Gustavsson, A-L., Johansson, L., Färnegårdh, K., Yngve, U., Saleh, A., Haraldsson, M., D'Hollander, A. C. A., Franco, M., Zhao, Y., Håkansson, M., Walse, B., Larsson, K., Peat, E. M., Pelechano, V., Lunec, J., Vojtesek, B., Carmena, M., Earnshaw, W. C., McCarthy, A. R., Westwood, N. J., Arsenian-Henriksson, M., Lane, D. P., Bhatia, R., McCormack, E. & Laín, S. 16 Mar 2018 In : Nature Communications. 9, 1107

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

ID: 168639052