title: Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language.
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.
authors.affiliation: 1] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK [2] Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: T J H
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Morgan
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GS, UK [2] Department of Linguistics, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany [3] Department of Primatology, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany.
authors.forename: N T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Uomini
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK.
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Rendell
authors.affiliation: 1] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK [2] Department of Biology, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chouinard-Thuly
authors.affiliation: 1] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK [2] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, UK.
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Street
authors.affiliation: 1] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK [2] Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.affiliation: 1] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK [2] Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, UK.
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Cross
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kearney
authors.affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London WC1H 0PY, UK.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: de la Torre
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JP, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Whiten
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AJ, UK.
authors.forename: K N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Laland
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003142:Communication; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010163:Paleontology / Q000379:methods*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013663:Teaching; D053001:Tool Use Behavior; D014706:Verbal Learning