What Cultural Primatology Can Tell Anthropologists about the Evolution of Culture

Abstract

This review traces the development of the field of cultural primatology from its origins in Japan in the 1950s to the present. The field has experienced a number of theoretical and methodological influences from diverse fields, including comparative experimental psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, behavioral ecology, cultural anthropology, and gene-culture coevolution theory. Our understanding of cultural dynamics and the evolution of culture cannot be complete without comparative studies of (a) how socioecological variables affect cultural transmission dynamics, (b) the proximate mechanisms by which social learning is achieved, (c) developmental studies of the role of social influence in acquiring behavioral traits, and (d) the fitness consequences of engaging in social learning.