The Acceleration of Cultural Change From Ancestors to Algorithms

A small theater. Hand axes. iPhones. Such fascinating or mundane objects exemplify “cultural

transmission” in R. Alexander Bentley and Michael J. O’Brien’s pleasant, quirky thesis. They

engagingly discuss a range of topics, from orcas to oral history, to detail, illustrate and explain

cultural transmission. Their clear writing is evocative as they outline the forces shaping cultural

change in areas as distinct as beer and prehistoric projectiles. The way they connect ideas and

historical progression leads to fascinating insights on change, culture and modern challenges.

Take-Aways

• Throughout history, humans shared and passed down culture, which blends the new and the

familiar.

• Culture used to change so slowly that it was almost static. Now it changes much more quickly,

transforming human interaction.

• Languages and technologies evolve with time and experience.

• Humans pass culture along through both “emulation” and “imitation.”

• People model the world using “Bayesian inference,” an iterative approach to learning.

• “Traditions” transmit culture deeply through a narrow group, while “horizons” transmit culture

in a broad, but shallow way.

• People are organized into networks. Different networks transmit culture differently.

• Technology markedly accelerates the pace of cultural transmission.

• Online platforms mark a transition between modes of “cultural evolution.”

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning can mine human digital data for new knowledge.

Summary

Throughout history, humans shared and passed down culture, which blends the new

and the familiar.

Richard Dawkins popularized the term “meme” in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. This term for

an idea that spreads throughout culture in an almost viral fashion itself spread throughout the

culture, mutating somewhat along the way. Memes fit the emerging internet perfectly. Humans

always passed culture down through the generations. In the past, transmission moved more

slowly and was more labor intensive, but today it happens much more quickly.

“In cultural evolution, ‘shallow time depth’ means freedom from the deeper past, which

often allows more turnover and drift.”

People talk, sing, share and continually communicate, transmitting and sharing culture as a

defining part of human identity. The human brain evolved to be interactive and social, which

is one reason why it’s so large compared with human body size. This is evolutionarily costly – it

makes childbirth harder – and thus must carry a balancing evolutionary benefit. That benefit is

“social cooperation,” which helps groups become more likely to survive. Humans pass along more

information than other primate species.

“Whether telling stories, singing songs or texting, humans have always liked to chat with

each other at work.”

Cooperation among humans started roughly 1.5 million years ago, most likely to improve hunting.

All primates groom one another and share information to help them choose mates. The larger

the grouping, the more challenging it is to gather information. This cognitive challenge aligns

with brain size, as did the size of different hominids’ groups. Social orientation defines humans

as a species. For example, people regularly care for one another’s children; most other primates

don’t. Due to cultural transmission, humans have “cultural intelligence” – that is, shared,

collective learning that improves group function. Culture is part of the human environment; it

blends new elements with those received earlier. Groups work best when 5% of their members

generate new ideas that the rest of the group copies.

Culture used to change so slowly that it was almost static. Now it changes much more

quickly, transforming human interaction.

In traditional societies, change occurred so slowly that people could regard their kinship

systems and technologies as static. This held true from the Neolithic period through the Middle

Ages. Some cultural patterns, such as how pottery is made, might stay recognizable for 1,000

years. Modern people accustomed to a steady flow of tweets might regard static, pottery-making

societies as primitive. However, the level of social interaction in such societies is intense and

ongoing: People communicate from morning to night. Traditional societies don’t seek new

entertainment products; they tell stories with the same themes for millennia.

“One thing can be predicted with certainty, though: It’s impossible to know exactly what

cultural game changers are on the horizon.”

Some elements of culture from thousands of years ago would seem familiar today. For example,

the Romans who lived near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England in the first century AD played

games like those played today, wore the same type of sandals one might find in a modern

store and celebrated events like birthdays. Cultural practices related to eating and drinking

stretch back furthest. Beer is thousands of years old; cheese at least 8,000 years old. Another

longstanding tradition is the accumulation and inheritance of wealth: Land was passed between

generations as far back as the Neolithic period.

Languages and technologies evolve with time and experience.

In the 1980s, Dawkins invented another phrase, “extended phenotype,” which refers to traits

that some living creatures inherit but not within their bodies – things like a beaver dam, spider

web, bird nest and termite mound. The organisms use these inner traits as both utilitarian and

protective “tools.” Some archeologists and anthropologists initially argued that tools and language

are “subject to evolutionary processes.” Some academics objected, because ideas and intentions

don’t work like biological genes.

“It’s not just kinship but also material technology that, to individuals of traditional

societies, would have seemed timeless.”

Since the 1980s, the idea of “cultural evolution” has gained support and so has the idea that things

outside the body can be extensions of the brain, memory or self. Consider smartphones. Two

images sometimes appear side-by-side: the iPhone and the stone-headed hand ax. Hand axes

serve as a major evolutionary marker; some argue that iPhones fill a similar role. Smartphones

change daily, but hand axes stayed relatively frozen in design.

“Since smart devices shape and increasingly constitute our personal environment, they

ought to qualify as part of the human phenotype.”

This indicates a fundamental change in human culture. In the heyday of the hand ax,

people inherited technology that hadn’t changed for centuries. The stasis wasn’t due to lack of

human intelligence. The size of the hominid brain doubled, but stone tools didn’t change. Instead,

these axes remained so basic that someone today can learn to make one in an afternoon.