Wk 1 - Intro

Question 1

Nine steps to explain the primate family tree…

Answer 1

Initial split at 63 million years into Strepsirhines (which then split at 50 million yrs into lemurs and lorises) and Haplorhines, which then split…
At 58 million yrs into Tarsiers, and the branch which split into…
New world monkeys and…
Old world monkeys, from which split…
Apes, at 25 million yrs ago, from which came…
Gibbons at 18 million yrs, and branch leading to orang-utans at 14 million yrs, and
Gorillas at 7 million
Humans at 6
Chimp and bonobos at 3

Question 2

Define culture (x4)

Answer 2

A system of socially transmitted behaviours
That are customary or habitual in one community but
Absent in another community, and
Where such variation cannot be explained by ecological or genetic differences alone

Question 3

Research by Whiten et al (1999) on ape culture has found…(x1)
Other animal culture research has revealed…

Answer 3

Research found 39 variations across 6 African chimp groups

19 variations in orangutans,also present in birdsong, whale calls

Question 4

How and why did Burke and Wills go wrong?

Answer 4

Evidence that indig populations helped them - gave them bread, made from plant which needed pre-boiling. Probably killed because they didn’t ask how to make it properly
Planning could not have been more extensive, however
Despite, their big brains, camels, specialized equipment, training, and seven months of exposure to the desert, and
Encounters with thousands of years of experience, didn’t learn - didn’t pay attention to the social knowledge

Question 5

Explain cumulative culture…(x3)

Answer 5

Even if you accept that chimps have culture, they don’t have cumulative culture
Unlike social learning in other animals, human cultural abilities generate adaptive strategies and bodies of knowledge that accumulate over generations.
Most technologies embody skills and know-how that no single individual could figure out in his/her lifetime

Question 6

Dawkins’ concept of memes is…(x2)

But has…(x2)

Answer 6

Analogous to genes
Unit of cultural, rather than biological inheritance - naturally selected for ‘phenotypic’ survival/replication consequences
No simple/predictable replication as for genes
Issues of discreteness and cultural coherence

Question 7

Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981) argued that the idea of memes is problematic because...(x2)
But Konner (2010) counter this with claims that...(x1)

Answer 7

Memes had artificial discreteness (arch is not independent of other ideas), and
That many cultural artefacts have no adaptive value – like coke, movies, religion
Participating in culturally appropriate artefacts increase status and bonds, so may be adaptive after all…

Question 8

Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981) classified cultural transmission as…(x3)

Answer 8

Vertical (parent to child)
Horizontal (between peers)
Oblique (adults to other people’s biological offspring)