1.
Session 18: Episode 5(3)
—
Where and how we started our
path to now
William P. Hall
President
Kororoit Institute Proponents and Supporters
Assoc., Inc. - http://kororoit.org
william-hall@bigpond.com
http://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net
Access my research papers from
Google Citations

2.
Tonight
 To this point I have summarized a vast array of evidence about
the physical evidence for reconstructing hominin history leading
to domination of the world by Homo sapiens (ourselves).
 In tonight’s session I begin to reconstruct the evolutionary
circumstances that led humans to diverge from their close
primate relatives to become something so completely new that
our capacity to dominate our physical and biological environment
has grown to the point where we are on the way to consuming the
entire planetary biosphere.
– How and why did the divergence begin?
– How has this shaped who we are today and are likely to become?
An Evolutionary Hypothesis: - Our First Five Million Years or “How Did We Get Here?”
Life in the primeval forest
The end of Eden and adapting to a hard life in a drier world with fewer trees
What can we learn about early hominins from chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys
Cultural versus hereditary transmission of technological knowledge
Where hominins have gone beyond chimpanzees and capuchins.

3.
An evolutionary hypothesis
 How and why did our ancestors 5 mya – not greatly different
from today’s chimpanzees and bonobos become us?
– Evolution cannot anticipate the future (or can it?)
– The success of a lineage or species depends on it occupying and
maintain an ecological niche where it can out-compete other
contenders for the resources available in that ecological space.
 Evolution of populations is driven by constant arms-races with other pops
contending for those resources.
 Individuals must access enough resources to survive and reproduce
subsequent generations also able to access adequate resources.
 Genetically determined anatomical, physiological, and behavioral
adaptations are all involved in maintaining access to the necessary
ecological space for population survival.
 Two aspects of hominid biology are particularly important to
maintaining the successful continuity of an evolutionary lineage
– life history
– system of heredity
 Hypothesis: blind evolution put us in a place where we began to
consciously anticipate the future3

4.
“System of heredity”
 The heredity of a species/population is knowledge transmitted
from one generation to the next that determines its capacity to
occupy and survive in an ecological niche
 Genetic inheritance: my PhD thesis focused on the role of
“genetic systems” in managing hereditary knowledge
– “genetic system” = aspects molecular genetics, cytogenetics, and
population biology that determine evolutionary plasticity, etc.
– These aspects are themselves subject to evolution via natural
selection
 Cultural inheritance: survival knowledge helping to determine the
capacity for occupying and surviving an in ecological niche may
also be culturally transmitted
– “cultural system” = aspects of neurobiology, behavior, and population
biology affecting adaptability are also subject to selection
 System of heredity = genetic system + cultural system
 Hypothesis is that natural selection led humans to evolve
increasingly powerful cultural systems that now gives us
conscious control over our evolution including ability to anticipate4

5.
Primates in the Garden
of Eden

6.
Primate life in the primeval tropical forests
 Ancestral great ape was a clambering
tree dweller probably able to walk
along the tops of branches
– Grasping hands & feet
– Binocular vision
– Lived social in persistent groups
– Primarily frugivorus
– Used hands to access hidden/
protected food items
– May have used resources from ground
– Large size minimized predation risk
 In most seasons could forage in trees
or on the ground with little effort for
readily available fruits, herbs, nuts,
insects and the occasional small
mammal prey
 Probably slept in trees, and if on the ground during the day they encountered one
of the few large carnivores hunting in the forest, e.g., leopards (Boesch 1991),
they could easily escape up a tree
 Biology was probably similar to today’s chimpanzees (with bonobos) our closest
living relatives who continue to live in the Primeval Eden
6

7.
CLCA life history strategy
 Life History: Gestation >8 months; infant (preweaning) mortality <40%;
weaning 4-7 years; puberty at 6-10 years; female reproduction at 11-15
years (postponed); interbirth interval <5 years; year-round breeding;
maximum lifespan 40 -50 years; no menopause.
 Behavior contributing to system of heredity: more females than males
disperse; polygamous mating system; possessive male mating strategy;
exerted female mate choice; male dominance; paternal care and paternal
protection present; conjugal families within semi-cohesive communities;
opportunistic male mating strategy; rape absent; positive correlation of
male rank and copulation rate, high -male mating success (100-81%).
 Other behaviors: sexual adornments of adult males present; medium-
size testes; medium copulatory frequency; exchange of favors for sexual
access present; moderately hostile intergroup encounters (limited
amount of lethal intergroup violence); multi-male groups present.
 Subsistence: group foraging; fission-fusion social groups, cultural
diversity (behavioral traditions) present, simple tools used for
extractive foraging; nest building present
 Anatomical: moderate sexual dimorphism in body weight and canine size.7

8.
Chimpanzees and bonobos suggest that our common
ancestor used and made simple tools
8
Videos
from
Bossou
Making thick and thin probes to fish for ants Clubs and a thrown rock deter/kill a leopard
Chimps learn hammer and anvil Breaking into a beehive
click picture
for video
click picture
for video
click picture
for video

9.
Other chimp tools
9
 Types
– Spears – used to kill & extract small mammalian
prey hiding in tree holes
– Digging sticks – used to harvest roots & tubers
– Mashers – large pestles used to mash hearts of
palm trees
– Sponges – used to extract drinking water from tree
holes
 Cultural and ecological distribution
– Culturally transmitted knowledge: tools used vary by
location from none to many
– Savanna chimpanzees have most extensive tool kits

10.
 Intelligence
– Mechanical: chimps show
capacity to make & use
a variety of tools
– Social: show significant
tolerance & can
cooperate on tasks
– Linguistic: both
 learn more than 250
word lexigrams
 use in 2-3 word phrases
 Bonobos don’t use tools in the wild – but it is clear
that they could if they needed to!
– Kanzi is one smart ape! – watch extraordinary documentary
– Natural history – Nova – the last great ape
Bonobos and chimps show their intelligence in the lab
10
click picture
for video

11.
The destruction of our
ancestors’ Eden forced
us onto a divergent path
that led us to dominate
Earth’s resources

12.
Plate tectonics 1 – the splitting of domes lifted by
plumes
12 Wood & Guth (2013)

13.
Plate tectonics 2 –Eden destroyed
 Rising mountains on either side
of rift block rain
 Cause increasing aridity &
seasonality
13
Wood & Guth (2013)

14.
Exposed to global cooling and growing rifts E African
hominins adapted to a hard life with fewer trees
 Uplifted mountains E
and W of the rifts
increasingly block rains
from either direction
 Gradual aridification
progressively changes
vegetation structure
– Moist closed forest
– Open forest
– Grassy woodland
– Savanna
– Open grassy scrubland
– Desert
 Increased seasonality
 Gradual replacement of
fruits by nuts &
underground storage
organs14 (Envisat)

15.
Hominin evolution and environmental variability over
the past 7 million years
15
Potts 2013. Hominin evolution in settings of strong environmental variability. Quaternary Science Reviews 73, 1-13
Potts & Faith 2015. Alternating high and low climate variability: The context of natural selection and speciation in Plio-
Pleistocene hominin evolution. Journal of Human Evolution - DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.014
 Alternative responses to
variability
– Genetic adaptation (change)
– Genetic adaptation
(versatility)
– Cultural change
– Cultural accumulation

16.
Impacts of environmental change and variability in E
African Rift (Olduvai, etc.) between 3.0 and 1.5 mya
 Long periods (lasting ∼130–330 ky
each) of magnified moist-arid
variability occurred between
3.0 and 1.5 mya.
 Possible modes of adaptation
– Fail to track (= extinction)
– Track with adaptive change (shift niche)
– Become more versatile (expand niche)
 Limits to genetic adaptation
– Slow & ponderous (intergenerational)
– Do one thing or the other not both
 Cultural adaptation
– Fast (intragenerational)
– Group-based phenomenon – cultural
knowledge pertains to group not particular individuals
– Group knowledge easily lost (dependent on intergenerational knowledge transfer, in turn
dependent on genetically determined capacities, group size, structure, and dynamics)
– Culturally transmitted knowledge relating to tool-making and use was grade-shifting
 Savanna ape inherited limited capacity to transmit cultural knowledge and
existing culture of simple tool-making and use from CLCA
16
Potts, R. 2013. Environmental and behavioral evidence
pertaining to the evolution of early Homo. Current Anthropology
53(S6), S229-S317.

17.
Finding enough food to make a living
 Optimizing dietary quantity and quality
 Modes of acquisition/foraging in a deterioriating Eden require increasing
knowledge
– Random picking (if it looks, smells, & tastes good, eat it)
 Genetics determines informs “goodness” (looks, smells, & taste)
– Targeted picking (know what is in season and where to find it)
 Long life, good memory of time and landscape, cognitive mapping of world
 Too much for trial-error learning – major benefit from cultural knowledge
– Extractive foraging (know where edibles hide & how to extract them)
 Innovation and ability to imagine the invisible
– Tool assisted extraction & processing (find & make inedible edible)
 Using levers and hammers to extend and empower the physical body
– Putting things together to make complex tools and processes
 Understanding causation
 Extending cognition
– Mapping the territory
– Imagining where food might be hidden & how to access it
– Retaining & sharing know how
– Increase cognitive capacity to manage more/more complex knowledge
17

18.
 Forest-dwelling chimpanzee-human last common
ancestor (CLCA)
– Primarily frugivorous with some tool-based extractive foraging
– Fission-fusion social structure, some transfer of cultural knowledge
– High selfishness, limited cooperation in defense and hunting
 Savanna apes as extractive foragers & scavengers
– Edible plant resources more widely scattered and harder to find
– New kinds of resources needed
 Roots, tubers and nuts
 Meats
– New dangers
 Big cats
 Hyenas
 Wild dogs
 Selection pressures
– Imagine where food might be hidden
– Retain & transfer cultural knowledge
– Increase memory & cognitive capacity
Surviving to reproduce
18
(Tattersall 2012)

19.
Hominins using haak en steek branches as tools (Guthrie 2007): a. for driving big cats away from their prey. b. The
simple conversion of a thorn branch into a "megathorn" lance for active hunting.
Cooperative defense and scavenging of carnivore kills cached in trees
gave early hominins increased access to meat on the savanna
 Savanna offers limited resource of edible plant foods but a rich supply
of grass-eating herbivore meat (most food found on the ground)
 Chimpanzee social defence against leopards is uncoordinated mobbing
with clubs
- Might be enough to deter leopard from returning to tree cache
- Wouldn’t stop a pride of lions or mob of hyenas on ground
 Simple requisites for grade shift to aggressive scavenging on the ground
– Coordinated & cooperative defense and offense using effective deterrence
– Oldowan butchering tools for cutting skin & ligaments
19

20.
Cognitive advances enable grade shifting revolutions in cultural
and organizational cognition
 Accelerating change in extending human cognition
– > 5 million years ago – social defence  cooperative foraging &
hunting  knowledge-based autopoietic groups
– ~ 2.0 mya - linguistically coordinated activities around campfires to
share group knowledge (mime, dancing, singing, story-telling, myth,
ritual)
– ~ 200 thousand years ago – mnemonic songlines apply ritual &
method of loci to landscapes to build & retain cultural memories
– ~ 12 kya – mnemonic guilds & monumental architectures enable
husbandry, settlement, farming & economic specialization
– ~ 7 kya – tokens & writing enable bureaucratic cities & states
– ~ 600 years ago – communications, coordination & rise of chartered
companies
– ~ 100 ya – instant communication & rise of transnationals
– ~ Now – emergence of global brains & global cognition
 Expanding role of cultural knowledge will be explored in further
sessions20

21.
21
Knowledge-based revolutions in material technology cause grade
shifts in the ecological nature of the human species
 Accelerating change in our material technologies:
– > 5 million years ago - Tool Making: sticks and stone tools plus
fire (~ 1 mya) extend human reach, diet and digestion
– ~ 11 thousand years ago - Agricultural Revolution: Ropes and
digging implements control and manage water and non–human
organic metabolism
– ~ 560 years ago Printing enables Reformation & Scientific
Revolution
– ~ 2.5 ca - Industrial Revolution: extends/replaces human and
animal muscle power with inorganic mechanical power
– ~ 50 years ago - Microelectronics Revolution: extends human
cognitive capabilities with computers
– ~ 5 years ago - Cyborg Revolution: convergence of human and
machine cognition with smartphones (today) and neural
prosthetics (tomorrow)

22.
Repeating the
experiment in a
New World
—
Was the emergence of human
cognition a rare chance event
or is it a potentially
repeatable outcome of normal
evolutionary processes?

23.
Repeating the experiment in a New World
23
~ 40 mya
 The common ancestor of primates in both worlds ran
along the interconnected highways of the tree canopy
– Moderate sized omnivore, with grasping hands & feet
– Ready supply of fruits, flowers, grubs & succulent leaves
– Stays in trees to avoid the predators of ground and air

24.
Platyrrhine ancestor colonized New World 30-40 mya
 Could raft across narrower Atlantic in 1-2 weeks
 Hystricomorph rodents colonized around same time24

25.
Another expulsion from the Garden of Eden
Brueghel & Rubens knew them in 1615
25

26.
Introducing smart monkeys from the New World
 Many people see capuchins as smart pets
– 2½ (♀) – 4 (♂) kg
– Life-span 40-45 years
26
Detail from "Students encounter an organ-grinder monkey on campus with
man holding Times-Picayune box, Rice University," 1960. Rice University,
http://hdl.handle.net/1911/77137
click picture
for video

27.
Will the real capuchin stand up!
 A knowledgable capuchin prepares its own meal using a
very heavy stone hammer and a log as an anvil (see
other video for the full sequence behind the picture)
27
click picture
for video

28.
Just how smart are capuchins?
 Clip documented by a series of publications by Westergaard and
colleagues from 1987-2007 independently repeated by other labs
28
click picture
for video

29.
The capuchin’s knowledge-based nut-cracking industry
29
6. select suitably dry nut(s)
7. transport nuts to anvil site
8. place nut in suitable anvil pit
9. strike nut with hammer to crack
(60-70 blows may be required!!)
10. eat nut & possibly share with young
scroungers learning the process
 Steps in the industrial process
1. Select ripe nut
2. Peel
3. Dry in sun for several days
4. Select appropriate anvil site
5. Find & transport suitable
hammer stone(s) to anvil site
click picture
for video

30.
Other technologies reported in the scientific
literature
 Capuchins in primeval forests not seen to use any tools
 Other tool uses seen in various scrubland cultures
– Defensive:
 Bombarding jaguars and people with rocks and boulders from
cliff-tops
 Bashing snakes with sticks (too small to fight off leopards)
– Hunting: spearing lizards & small mammals in holes with sharp
sticks
– Mining: using stone picks to extract more suitable stone from
hillsides
– Cultivating: using stones and sticks as hoes and shovels to dig
up edible roots & tubers
– Communication: females in oestrous throw stones towards
desirable males to attract attention
 Different groups use different tools30

31.
Forging a hard life in a barren landscape
31
Amazonia
Thorn scrub
Atlantic forest
 Caatinga and Cerrado
 Short rainy seasons (~ 2 months)
 Hot almost entirely rainless dry seasons
 Thorn scrubs and savanna

32.
Genetic proliferation in & after last glaciation
32
Sapajus
Atlantic forest
Cebus
Amazonia
6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 now
} The tool users all live in Caatinga
and Cerrado and are very recent
derivatives

33.
Adversity is the mother of intelligence and invention
 Encephalization quotients of some primtes
Sapajus

34.
Carrying two nuts and a hammer to an anvil site
Semi-terrestrial capuchins are also being selected
for bipedalism
34
click picture
for video

35.
Could these monkeys rule the world with human grade
cognition if it were not for humans?
 Encephalization quotient equivalent to hominins ~ 4-3 mya
 May have less symbolic and mechanical intelligence than
chimps/bonobos
 No ape other than humans shows as much understanding of its
tools or manages as complex an industrial process as do Sapajus
 Clear evidence for cultural sharing and transmission of
sophisticated survival knowledge
35

36.
What do you think?
 Virgil has the nuts, Vulcan has the knife
36
click picture
for video

37.
Next session explores how apes became human with the control
of fire and the development of language
37
 In the next session I explore the selective processes and
technological innovations that helped carnivorous savanna apes
become recognizably human and set them on a still accelerating
path of technological and cultural evolution
 In this process culture begins to replace genetics as the major
mechanism for transmitting adaptive knowledge
 With increasingly effective tools and increasingly better means
of sharing knowledge in processes of teaching and learning, these
early humans became versatile enough to spread through most of
the rest of Africa and Eurasia as H. erectus, heidelbergensis,
and perhaps other genetically distinct species
Becoming human
Using, keeping & making fire
Language revolution and the emergence of “archaic” humans
Language and the emergence of groups as higher order autopoietic systems
Homo sapiens’ dispersal out of Africa
Considering the pace of technological change