Question

1. It can be argued that the greatest tool that humans have used for survival is culture. Discuss how cultural tools in a particular time and place allowed us to adapt to, and change the, environment in order to survive.

It's Human Evolution, Ecology & Adaptation Course.

Answer 1

Ans Cultural tools in a particular time and place allowed us to adapt to, and change the, environment in order to survive. This is explained below:-

Our ability to successfully adapt to such a diverse range of habitats is often explained in terms of our cognitive ability.

Humans have relatively bigger brains and more computing power than other animals, and this allows us to figure out how to live in a wide range of environments.

Humans may be smarter than other creatures, but none of us is nearly smart enough to acquire all of the information necessary to survive in any single habitat.

In even the simplest foraging societies, people depend on a vast array of tools, detailed bodies of local knowledge, and complex social arrangements and often do not understand why these tools, beliefs, and behaviors are adaptive.

We owe our success to our uniquely developed ability to learn from others. This capacity enables humans to gradually accumulate information across generations and develop well-adapted tools, beliefs, and practices that are too complex for any single individual to invent during their lifetime.

In its brief evolutionary history, Homo sapiens has come to occupy a larger range than any other terrestrial vertebrate species.

This global expansion required the rapid development of a vast range of new knowledge, tools, and social arrangements.

The people who moved out of Africa were tropical foragers. Northern Eurasia was an immense treeless steppe, relatively poor in plant resources and teeming with unfamiliar prey species.

The people that roamed the steppe confronted a hostile climate—temperatures fell to −20 °C for months at a time, and there were often high winds.

Surviving in such environments requires a whole new suite of adaptations—tailored clothing, well-engineered shelters, local knowledge about game, and techniques for creating light and heat.

Although these adaptations were complex and functionally integrated, they were mainly cultural, not genetic, adaptations.

It may be costly for individuals using improvisational intelligence to discover locally adaptive information, but once it is acquired, others can get it by teaching or imitation at relatively low cost.

As a result, social learning acts to spread the cost of innovations over all who benefit. Innovations accumulate, leading to an accumulation of knowledge.

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