PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mary Brooke McElreath
AU  - Christophe Boesch
AU  - Hjalmar Kühl
AU  - Richard McElreath
TI  - Complex Dynamics from Simple Cognition: The Primary Ratchet Effect in Animal Culture
AID  - 10.1101/134247
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 134247
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/04/134247.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/04/134247.full
AB  - It is often observed that human culture, unlike most other animal culture, is cumulative: human technology and behavior is more complex than any individual could invent in their own lifetime. Cumulative culture is often explained by appeal to a combination of high-fidelity social learning and innovation, the “ratchet effect.” What is often overlooked is that both human and other animal culture is supported by a more primary ratchet effect that retains and increases the prevalence of adaptive behavior. This primary ratchet can arise without appeal to specialized cognitive adaptations and is plausibly more widespread in animal societies. We use a simple model to highlight how simple forms of contingent social learning can create the primary ratchet effect, dramatically increasing the prevalence of adaptive, hard to invent behavior. We investigate some ways that demography may interact with the primary ratchet to generate patterns of cultural variation. As the primary ratchet may be common to many animal societies, its cognitive components and population dynamics provide a common foundation for the study of animal culture and a necessary foundation for understanding the origins of human cumulative culture.