Climate Change and the Evolution of Cultural Transmission in the Human Lineage
Abstract
To investigate whether climate influenced the evolution of cultural transmission in the hominin lineage, we compared transmission strategies associated with archaeological innovations dated between 3.3 Ma and 6 ka with a continuous global palaeoclimate record. Transmission was assessed across three dimensions: spatial (proximity between learner and model), temporal (degree of modularity or sequencing), and social (selectivity in knowledge transfer). Results show that transmission modes correlate with long-term climatic phases, not with the rate of climatic variability. Within a long-term trend towards increasingly complex transmission, globally cooler phases favoured low-investment, observation-based strategies, whereas globally warmer phases promoted structured, explanation-based, and modular transmission. The strongest association between modes of cultural transmission and climate occurs between 500 and 200 ka, followed by progressive decoupling, particularly after 50 ka, when cultural transmission increasingly follows its own dynamics.
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BibTeX
@article{derrico2026climate,
title = {{Climate Change and the Evolution of Cultural Transmission in the Human Lineage}},
author = {Francesco d'Errico and Ivan Colagè and Lloyd Courtenay},
journal = {Evolutionary Human Sciences},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1017/ehs.2026.10068},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05849559v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Climate Change and the Evolution of Cultural Transmission in the Human Lineage
AU - Francesco d'Errico
AU - Ivan Colagè
AU - Lloyd Courtenay
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/13
JO - Evolutionary Human Sciences
DO - 10.1017/ehs.2026.10068
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05849559v1
AB - To investigate whether climate influenced the evolution of cultural transmission in the hominin lineage, we compared transmission strategies associated with archaeological innovations dated between 3.3 Ma and 6 ka with a continuous global palaeoclimate record. Transmission was assessed across three dimensions: spatial (proximity between learner and model), temporal (degree of modularity or sequencing), and social (selectivity in knowledge transfer). Results show that transmission modes correlate with long-term climatic phases, not with the rate of climatic variability. Within a long-term trend towards increasingly complex transmission, globally cooler phases favoured low-investment, observation-based strategies, whereas globally warmer phases promoted structured, explanation-based, and modular transmission. The strongest association between modes of cultural transmission and climate occurs between 500 and 200 ka, followed by progressive decoupling, particularly after 50 ka, when cultural transmission increasingly follows its own dynamics.
SN - 2513-843X
ER -