Skip to main content

Social Learning and Innovation in Hunter-Gatherers

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series ((RNMH))

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to social learning and innovation in hunter-gatherers, summarizes major theoretical orientations on from whom and how children learn from others, and highlights new results from chapters in the book.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Aunger R (2000) The life history of culture learning in a face-to-face society. Ethos 28:445–481

    Google Scholar 

  • Barry HG, Child IL, Bacon MK (1959) Relation of child training to subsistence economy. Am Anthropol 61:51–63

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird-David N (1990) The giving environment: another perspective on the economic system of gatherer-hunters. Curr Anthropol 31:189–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock JA (2002) Learning, life history, and productivity: children’s lives in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Hum Nat 13:161–198

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock JA (2005a) Farming, foraging, and children’s play in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. In: Pelligrini AD, Smith PK (eds) The nature of play: great apes and humans. Guilford Press, New York, pp 254–284

    Google Scholar 

  • Bock JA (2005b) What makes a competent adult forager? In: Hewlett BS, Lamb ME (eds) Hunter-gatherer childhoods. Transaction, New Brunswick, pp 105–108

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogin B (1999) Patterns of human growth. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu P (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowlby J (1983) Attachment. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Briggs JL (1971) Never in anger. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Bronfenbrenner U (1979) The ecology of human development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavalli Sforza LL, Feldman M (1981) Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Chick G (2010) Work, play, and learning. In: Lancy DF, Bock J, Gaskins S (eds) The anthropology of learning in childhood. AltaMira, Lanham, pp 119–144

    Google Scholar 

  • Chudek M, Brosseau-Liard PE, Birch S, Henrich J (2013) Culture-gene coevolutionary theory and children’s selective social learning. In: Banaji MR, Gelman SA (eds) Navigating the social world: what infants, children, and other species can teach us. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Downey G (2010) Practice without theory: a neuroanthropological perspective on embodied learning. J R Anthropol Inst (NS):S22–S40

    Google Scholar 

  • Fouts HN, Brookshire R (2009) Who feeds children? a child’s-eye-view of caregiver feeding patterns among the Aka foragers in Congo. Soc Sci Med 69:285–292

    Google Scholar 

  • Fouts HN, Lamb ME (2009) Cultural and developmental in toddlers’ interactions with other children in two small-scale societies in central Africa. J Eur Dev Sci 3:259–277

    Google Scholar 

  • Furniss S (2014) Diversity in Pygmy music: a family portrait. In: Hewlett BS (ed) Hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin. Transaction, Piscataway, pp 187–218

    Google Scholar 

  • Galef BG, Giraldeau LA (2001) Social influences on foraging in vertebrates: causal mechanisms and adaptive functions. Anim Behav 61:3–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaskins S, Paradise R (2010) Learning through observation in daily life. In: Lancy DF, Bock J, Gaskins S (eds) The anthropology of learning in childhood. Alta Mira Press, Lanham, pp 85–118

    Google Scholar 

  • Gosso Y, Otta E, de Lima M, Morais SE, Ribeiro FJL, Bussab VSR (2005) Play in hunter-gatherer society. In: Pelligrini AD, Smith PK (eds) The nature of play: great apes and humans. Guilford Press, New York, pp 213–253

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenfield PM (2004) Weaving generations together: evolving creativity in the Maya of Chiapas. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenfield P, Lave J (1982) Cognitive aspects of informal education. In: Wagner DA, Stevenson HW (eds) Cultural perspectives on child development. WH Freeman, San Francisco

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurven M, Kaplan H, Gutierrez M (2006) How long does it take to become a proficient hunter? Implications for the evolution of delayed growth. J Hum Evol 51:454–470

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris JR (1998) The nurture assumption: why children turn out the way they do. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris PL (2012) Trusting what your told. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Hattori S (2010) “My medicine (ma a le)”: variability of medicinal plant knowledge among adult Baka huntergatherers of Southeast Cameroon. Paper presented at the workshop on recent research among Congo Basin hunter-gatherers. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2010) The evolution of innovation-enhancing institutions. In: O’Brien MJ, Shennan SJ (eds) Innovation in cultural systems. MIT, Cambridge, MA, pp 99–120

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R (1998) The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between group differences. Evol Hum Behav 19:215–242

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R, Richerson PJ (2008) Five misunderstandings about cultural evolution. Hum Nat 19(2):119–137

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Broesch J (2011) On the nature of cultural transmission networks: evidence from Fijian villages for adaptive learning biases. Philos Trans R Soc 366:1139–1148

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, McElreath (2003) The evolution of cultural evolution. Evol Anthropol 23:123–135

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Heine SJ, Norenzayan A (2010) The weirdest people in the world. Behav Brain Sci 33:61–83

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS (1991a) Intimate fathers. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS (1991b) Demography and childcare in preindustrial societies. J Anthropol Res 47:1–37

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Boyette AH (2012) Play in hunter-gatherers. In: Narvaez D, Panksepp J, Schore A, Gleason T (eds) Evolution, early experience and human development: from research to practice and policy. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 388–393

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Cavalli Sfora LL (1986) Cultural transmission among Aka pygmies. Am Anthropol 88:922–934

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BL, Hewlett BS (2012) Hunter-gatherer adolescence. In: Hewlett BL (ed) Adolescent identity: evolutionary, cultural, and developmental perspectives. Routledge, New York, pp 73–101

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Fouts HN, Boyette AH, Hewlett BL (2011) Social learning among Congo Basin hunter-gatherers. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 366:1168–1178

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Lamb ME, Shannon D, Leyendecker B, Schölmerich A (1998) Culture and early infancy among central African foragers and farmers. Dev Psychol 34:653–661

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Lamb ME, Leyendecker B, Schölmerich A (2000) Internal working models, trust, and sharing among foragers. Curr Anthropol 41:287–297

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Lamb ME (2005) Hunter-gatherer childhoods: evolutionary, developmental and cultural perspectives. Transaction/Aldine, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Roulette JW (2014) Cosleeping beyond infancy: culture, ecology and evolutionary biology of bedsharing among Aka foragers and Ngandu farmers of Central Africa. In: Narvaez D, Valentino K, Fuentes A, McKenna J, Gray P (eds) Ancestral landscapes in human evolution: childrearing and social wellbeing. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Winn S (2014) Allomaternal nursing in humans. Curr Anthropol 55:200–229

    Google Scholar 

  • Heyes CM (1994) Social learning in animals: categories and mechanisms. Biol Rev 69:207–231

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill KR, Wood BM, Boggio J, Hurtado AM, Boyd RT (2014) Hunter-gatherer inter-band interaction rates: implications for cumulative culture. PLoS ONE 9:e102806. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102806

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoppitt W, Laland KN (2013) Social learning: an introduction to mechanisms, methods, and models. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Imanishi K (1952) Evolution of humanity. In: Imanishi K (ed) Man. Mainichi-Shinbun-sha, Tokyo, pp 36–94

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold T (2001) From the transmission of representations to the education of attention. In: Whitehouse H (ed) The debated mind: evolutionary psychology versus ethnography. Berg, Oxford, pp 115–153

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan PD (2014) Technology as human social tradition: cultural transmission among huntergatherers. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamei N (2005) Play among Baka children of Cameroon. In: Hewlett BS, Lamb ME (eds) Hunter-gatherer childhoods. Aldine/Transaction, New Brunswick, pp 343–362

    Google Scholar 

  • Kawai M (1965) Newly acquired pre-cultural behavior of the natural troop of Japanese monkeys on Koshima islet. Primates 6:1–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly RL (2013) The lifeways of hunter-gatherers: the foraging spectrum. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Kline MA (2014) How to learn about teaching: an evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals. Behav Brain Sci. available on CJ02014. doi:a0.1017/S0140525X14000090

    Google Scholar 

  • Lancy DF (1996) Playing on the mother ground: cultural routines for children’s development. Guilford Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lancy DL, Bock J, Gaskins S (2011) The anthropology of learning. Alta Mira Press, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Lave J, Wenger E (2001) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RB, Daly R (2004) Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • LeVine RA, Dixon S, LeVine S, Richman A, Keefer H, Leiderman PH, Brazelton TB (1994) Child care and culture: lessons from Africa. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis J (2015) Where goods are free but knowledge costs. Hunt Gath Res 1:1–27

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald K (2007) Cross-cultural comparison of learning in human hunting. Hum Nat 18:386–402

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald DH, Hewlett BS (1999) Reproductive interests and forager mobility. Curr Anthropol 40:501–523

    Google Scholar 

  • Malinowski B (1929) The sexual life of savages in north western Melanesia. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead M (1928) Coming of age in Samoa. Morrow, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead M (1930) Growing up in New Guinea. Morrow, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Meir D (2002) In schools we trust: creating communities of learning in an era of testing and standardization. Beacon, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesoudi S (2011) Cultural evolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Nell ML, Drew WF, Bush DE (2013) From play to practice: connecting teachers’ play to children’s learning. National Association for the Education of Young Children, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien MJ, Shennan SJ (2010) Innovation in cultural systems. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohmagari K, Berkes F (1997) Transmission of indigenous knowledge and bush skills among the western James Bay Cree women of subarctic Canada. Hum Ecol 25:197–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Pelligrini A (2009) The role of play in human development. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Rendell L, Fogarty L, Hoppitt WJE, Morgan TJH, Webster MM (2011) Cognitive culture: theoretical and empirical insights into social learning strategies. Evolution 63:534–548

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-Garcia V, Broesch J, Calvet-Mir L, Fuentes-Peláez N, McDade TW, Parsa S, Tanner S, Huanca T, Leonard WR, Martínez-Rodríguez MR (2009) Cultural transmission of ethnobotanical knowledge and skills: an empirical analysis from an Amerindian society. Evol Hum Behav 30:274–285

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson P, Boyd R (2005) Not by genes alone: how culture transformed human evolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Roger AR (1998) Does biology constrain culture? Am Anthropol 90:819–831

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff B (1981) Adults and peers as agents of socialization: a highland Guatemalan profile. Ethos 9:18–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff B (2003) The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff B, Mistry J, Goncu A, Mosier C, Chavajay P, Brice Heath S (1993) Guided participation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev 58:1–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogoff B, Paradise R, Mejia Arauz R, Correa-Chavez M, Angelillo C (2003) Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annu Rev Psychol 54:175–203

    Google Scholar 

  • Spindler G (1974) The transmission of culture. In: Spindler GD (ed) Education and cultural process. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, pp 279–310

    Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (2012) The evolved apprentice: how evolution made humans unique. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Super CM, Harkness S (1986) The developmental niche: a conceptualization at the interface of child and culture. Int J Behav Dev 9:545–569

    Google Scholar 

  • Takada A (2015) Narratives on San ethnicity: the cultural and ecological foundations of lifeworld among the !Xun of north-central Namibia. Kyoto University Press, Kyoto

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker B, Young AG (2005) Growing up Mikea: children’s time allocation and tuber foraging in southwestern Madagascar. In: Hewlett BS, Lamb ME (eds) Hunter-gatherer childhoods. Transaction, New Brunswick, pp 147–171

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky L (1978) Mind in society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Whiten A (2011) The scope of culture in chimpanzees, humans and ancestral apes. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 366:997–1007

    Google Scholar 

  • Whiten A, Hinde RA, Stringer CB, Laland KN (2012) Culture evolves. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Whiting BB, Whiting JWM (1975) Children of six cultures. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiessner P (1977) Hxaro: a regional system of reciprocity for reducing risk among the !Kung San. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodburn J (1982) Egalitarian societies. Man (ns) 17:431–451

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barry S. Hewlett .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer Japan

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hewlett, B.S. (2016). Social Learning and Innovation in Hunter-Gatherers. In: Terashima, H., Hewlett, B.S. (eds) Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers. Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo

  • Print ISBN: 978-4-431-55995-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-4-431-55997-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics