Social Learning and Culture

Today, cultural processes are known for not only for humans but also for many species and may be instrumental in maintaining the niches and social behavior of many animals, certainly including apes and monkeys. This chapter begins by examining social learning in general, and then examines cultural phenomena in nonhuman animals. Following this, it discusses human culture and analyzes how the differences could have arisen, which leads to a discussion of cumulative cultural evolution. Social learning can be subdivided into two classes: learning by social interaction and learning from social information. Given the ubiquity of culture in great apes, it can safely be assumed that the first hominins started out with the general great-ape form of culture. The two major differences between the cultures of humans and great apes thus must have arisen after the split from the concestor (the last common ancestor of humans and Pan).