Evolution of Culture

Learnt behaviour is passed down generations not just in highly intelligent species.

Learnt behaviour is passed down generations not just in highly intelligent species.

We have long believed that culture is one attribute that separates us from other animals. It also explains the rapid pace of advance in the development of humanity, allowing as it does for ideas and techniques acquired by one generation to be passed on to the next. In contrast, evolution only allows inherited characteristics to be passed on, enabling change in a far slower manner than culture and the passage of tradition does. In the recent past, this view was  somewhat amended after it was found that certain animals such as primates and dolphins pass on learnt behaviour. But it is even more humbling to know that this tendency may be even more widespread. Scientists from the University of Exeter’s School of Biosciences have found that mongooses do much the same. Dr Corsin Müller, lead author of the study, notes, “We’ve shown that the basic mechanism for traditions is already found in animals of very average intellect, like mongooses. If they pass on traditions, there’s no reason to suspect most other animals wouldn’t have traditions too. This is a starting point at which traditions could evolve to become more complex and gives us an insight into how our cultures may have begun.”

Mongooses are marked by a unique social system where the young are raised by a relative that seems to be selected by the pup in question. This pair bonding led the team to ask the question whether the escort was passing on traditions to the pup. Mongooses eat eggs or hard-shelled animals such as beetles, either by biting through the outer shell or smashing it on a hard surface. The team created an artificial prey—a plastic egg  filled with rice and fish—and found that pups indeed picked up the method their escort was using. Dr Müller adds: “Our research adds to growing evidence that features which were long thought to be uniquely human actually are found, in basic forms, in animals. This doesn’t make humans any less special, but it does give us an insight into how our own peculiar behaviour could come about.”

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Hartosh Singh Bal