Increasing population density, rather than boosts in human brain power, appears to have catalysed the emergence of modern human behaviour, according to a new study by researchers from the AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity and colleagues at UCL (University College London) published in the journal Science. High population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It is this skill maintenance, combined with a greater probability of useful innovations, that led to modern human behaviour appearing at different times in different parts of the world.
In the study, the team found that complex skills learnt across generations can only be maintained when there is a critical level of interaction between people. Using computer simulations of social learning, they showed that high and low-skilled groups could coexist over long periods of time and that the degree of skill they maintained depended on local population density or the degree of migration between them. Using genetic estimates of population size in the past, the team went on to show that density was similar in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle-East when modern behaviour first appeared in each of these regions. The paper also points to evidence that population density would have dropped for climatic reasons at the time when modern human behaviour temporarily disappeared in sub-Saharan Africa.
Adam Powell, AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, says: “Our paper proposes a new model for why modern human behaviour started at different times in different regions of the world, why it disappeared in some places before coming back, and why in all cases it occurred more than 100,000 years after modern humans first appeared.
“By modern human behaviour, we mean a radical jump in technological and cultural complexity, which makes our species unique.'
The findings of the team show that successful innovation depends less on how smart you are than on how connected you are. Something as relevant today as it was 90,000 years ago.
To learn more about the research go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/
Notes for Editors
For more information or to set up an interview, please contact Dr Mark Thomas on +44 (0)20 7679 7418, mobile +44 (0)7973 725955 email m.thomas@ucl.ac.uk or Adam Powell on mobile +44 (0)7970 267348, email adam.powell@ucl.ac.uk, or Professor Stephen Shennan on +44 (0)20 7679 7483, mobile +44 (0)7809 765411, email s.shennan@ucl.ac.uk.
‘Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behaviour’ by Adam Powell, Stephen Shennan and Mark Thomas, is published in the journal Science. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.
About Arts and Humanities Research Council-
Each year the AHRC provides approximately £102 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,350 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute over a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. www.ahrc.ac.uk
About the Arts and Humanities Research Council Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity-
As a world leader in its field, the AHRC CECD, based at UCL, aims to advance understanding of human cultural diversity. It is a collaborative institution involving a large national and international network. Its research programme focuses on the relation between cultural and linguistic diversity, as these influence and respond to variation in the size and structure of human populations. The Centre undertakes a major outreach programme to convey the importance of this work to academic and non-academic audiences.
The CECD is a Phase Two AHRC Research Centre (2006-2010), building on the earlier work of the AHRB Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behaviour. The AHRC CECD exploits the position established by the CEACB's as a world leader to accelerate the development of the new discipline of cultural evolutionary studies
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