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The pace of cultural evolution.

Charles Perreault1

  • 1Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America. cperreault@santafe.edu

Plos One
|October 2, 2012
PubMed
Summary

Humans adapt rapidly due to cultural evolution, which is faster than biological evolution. This allows adaptation across diverse timescales, benefiting both short-lived and long-lived species.

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Anthropology
  • Cultural evolution

Background:

  • Humans inhabit diverse terrestrial habitats, attributed to a secondary inheritance system: culture.
  • Cultural evolution is presumed to be faster than biological evolution, enabling rapid adaptation.
  • This assumption lacks empirical testing.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To empirically test the assumption that cultural evolution is faster than biological evolution.
  • To compare the rates of change in human technologies with animal morphologies.
  • To investigate the influence of measurement time intervals on observed evolutionary rates.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of human technological change rates against animal morphological change rates.
  • Statistical control for the correlation between evolutionary rates and measurement time intervals.

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  • Examination of evolutionary rates across different time scales.

    • Main Results:

    • Observed rates of cultural evolution are inversely correlated with the time interval of measurement.
    • After controlling for time intervals, cultural evolution is demonstrated to be significantly faster than biological evolution.
    • This faster rate of cultural evolution is maintained even when controlling for species generation time.

    Conclusions:

    • Culture provides a mechanism for rapid adaptation, enabling humans to colonize diverse environments.
    • Cultural evolution operates on faster timescales than biological evolution, even when generation times are similar.
    • Culture allows humans to leverage rapid adaptation for short-term environmental changes while retaining benefits of long life histories.