https://news.asu.edu/20240617-science-and-technology-asu-study-points-origin-cumulative-culture-human-evolution

Each of us individually is the accumulated
product of thousands of generations that
have come before us in an unbroken line.
Our culture and technology today are also
the result of thousands of years of
accumulated and remixed cultural knowledge.

But when did our earliest ancestors begin
to make connections and start to build on
the knowledge of others, setting us apart
from other primates? Cumulative culture —
the accumulation of technological
modifications and improvements over
generations — allowed humans to adapt to a
diversity of environments and challenges.
But, it is unclear when cumulative culture
first developed during hominin evolution.

A study published this week in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences journal by Arizona State
University researcher Charles Perreault
and doctoral graduate Jonathan Paige
concludes that humans began to rapidly
accumulate technological knowledge
through social learning around 600,000
years ago.

“Our species, Homo sapiens, has been
successful at adapting to ecological
conditions — from tropical forests to
arctic tundra — that require different
kinds of problems to be solved," said
Perreault, a research scientist with
the Institute of Human Origins and an
associate professor with the School of
Human Evolution and Social Change.
“Cumulative culture is key because it
allows human populations to build on
and recombine the solutions of prior
generations and to develop new complex
solutions to problems very quickly.

"The result is, our cultures — from
technological problems and solutions
to how we organize our institutions —
are too complex for individuals to
invent on their own.”

To investigate when this technological
turn may have begun and to explore the
origin of cumulative culture, Paige and
Perreault analyzed changes in the
complexity of stone tool manufacturing
techniques across the past 3.3 million
years of the archaeological record.

As a baseline for the complexity of stone
tool technologies achievable without
cumulative culture, the researchers
analyzed technologies used by nonhuman
primates — like chimpanzees — and stone
tool manufacturing experiments involving
inexperienced human flintknappers and
randomized flaking.

The researchers broke down the complexity
of the stone tool technologies by the
number of steps (procedural units, or PUs)
that each tool-making sequence involved.

The results suggested that from around
3.3 to 1.8 million years ago — when
australopiths and earliest Homo species
were around — stone tool manufacturing
sequences remained within the range of
the baselines (1 to 6 PUs). From around
1.8 million to 600,000 years ago,
manufacturing sequences began to overlap
with and slightly exceed the complexity
baseline (4 to 7 PUs). But, after around
600,000 years ago, the complexity of
manufacturing sequences rapidly increased
(5 to 18 PUs).

“By 600,000 years ago or so, hominin
populations started relying on unusually
complex technologies, and we only see rapid
increases in complexity after that time as
well. Both of those findings match what we
expect to see among hominins who rely on
cumulative culture,” said Paige, a
postdoctoral researcher at the University
of Missouri and an ASU PhD graduate.

Tool-assisted foraging may have been the
impetus for the earliest beginning of the
evolution of cumulative culture. Early
hominins, 3.4 to 2 million years ago,
likely relied on foraging strategies that
require tools — like accessing meat, marrow
and organs — leading to changes in brain
size, lifespan and biology that set the
stage for cumulative culture.
...


https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2319175121
3.3 million years of stone tool complexity
suggests that cumulative culture began
during the Middle Pleistocene


Significance
Our species, Homo sapiens, occupies a
uniquely diverse set of ecological
habitats. Humans expanded into tropical
forests and arctic tundra through
cumulative culture. Cumulative culture
is the accumulation of modifications,
innovations, and improvements over
generations through social learning.
Generations of variant accumulations
allow humans to use technologies and
know-how well beyond what a single
naive individual could invent
independently within their lifetime.
We analyzed the stone tools made
during the last 3.3 My. We found that
these stone tools remained simple until
about 600,000 B.P. After that point,
stone tools rapidly increased in
complexity. Consistent with findings
from other research teams, we suggest
that this transition signals the
development of cumulative culture in
the human lineage.


Abstract
Cumulative culture, the accumulation of
modifications, innovations, and
improvements over generations through
social learning, is a key determinant
of the behavioral diversity across Homo
sapiens populations and their ability
to adapt to varied ecological habitats.
Generations of improvements,
modifications, and lucky errors allow
humans to use technologies and know-how
well beyond what a single naive
individual could invent independently
within their lifetime. The human
dependence on cumulative culture may
have shaped the evolution of biological
and behavioral traits in the hominin
lineage, including brain size, body
size, life history, sociality,
subsistence, and ecological niche
expansion. Yet, we do not know when, in
the human career, our ancestors began to
depend on cumulative culture. Here, we
show that hominins likely relied on a
derived form of cumulative culture by
at least ~600 kya, a result in line
with a growing body of existing
evidence. We analyzed the complexity
of stone tool manufacturing sequences
over the last 3.3 My of the
archaeological record. We then compare
these to the achievable complexity
without cumulative culture, which we
estimate using nonhuman primate
technologies and stone tool
manufacturing experiments. We find
that archaeological technologies
become significantly more complex
than expected in the absence of
cumulative culture only after
~600 kya.

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