Evolution of Human Cooperation: An Archaeological Approach Focusing on Hunter-Gather Society
Abstract
The history and development of cooperation between people is a major topic in many areas. The most popular ideas about how cooperation started are cultural group selection and the idea of charity. Scientists have different responses to them, though. People have evolved and survived in many places over a very long time, so they must have left behind a lot of proof. This paper looks into the main reasons why people work together and how cooperation has evolved by collecting historical samples and ethnic records and analysing them along with other research. The poll results show that the main reason people work together is to get what they want. To stay alive in natural settings that are very complicated, people work together to build trust and reputation systems. The creation of ways to respond to different cultures and punish people who don't follow the rules has helped to keep socialised systems of cooperation that were formed when cultures clashed or mixed. Cooperation is something that everyone does, but different places have their own religious beliefs and cultural practices that shape how people work together. A lot of different things affect how cooperative people are, and it's hard to come up with a good theoretical model just from the studies that have been done so far.
References
- Salem, A. A., Abdelsattar, M., Abu Al-Diyar, M., Al-Hwailah, A. H., Derar, E., Al-Hamdan, N. A., & Tilwani, S. A. (2022). Altruistic behaviors and cooperation among gifted adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.945766
- Vlerick, M. (2020). Explaining human altruism. Synthese, 199(1–2), 2395–2413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02890-y
- Smith, D. (2020) “Cultural group selection and human cooperation: a conceptual and empirical review,” Evolutionary Human Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 2, p. e2. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2020.2.
- Richerson, P., Baldini, R., Bell, A. V., Demps, K., Frost, K., Hillis, V., Mathew, S., Newton, E. K., Naar, N., Newson, L., Ross, C., Smaldino, P. E., Waring, T. M. and Zefferman, M. (2016) “Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Cambridge University Press, 39, p. e30. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X1400106X.
- Carballo, D.M., Roscoe, P. & Feinman, G.M. Cooperation and Collective Action in the Cultural Evolution of Complex Societies. J Archaeol Method Theory 21, 98–133 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-012-9147-2
- Boyd, R., Richerson, P.J. Cultural transmission and the evolution of cooperative behavior. Hum Ecol 10, 325–351 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531189
- Okasha, S. The origins of human cooperation. Biol Philos 28, 873–878 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-013-9392-0
- de Francisco, A. (2014) ‘Feeling cooperation, being moral’, Rationality and Society, 26(3), pp. 355–372. doi:10.1177/1043463113512998.
- Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2005). Human altruism – proximate patterns and evolutionary origins. Analyse & Kritik, 27(1), 6–47. https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2005-0101
- Baumard, N. Has punishment played a role in the evolution of cooperation? A critical review. Mind Soc 9, 171–192 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-010-0079-9
- Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2020). Culture and the evolution of the human social instincts. Roots of Human Sociality, 453–477. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003135517-23
- Tomasello, M., Melis, A. P., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., & Herrmann, E. (2012). Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 673–692. https://doi.org/10.1086/668207
- Curry, O. S., Mullins, D. A., & Whitehouse, H. (2019). Is it good to cooperate? testing the theory of morality-as-cooperation in 60 societies. Current Anthropology, 60(1), 47–69. https://doi.org/10.1086/701478
- Boyd, R. and Richerson, P.J. (2009) ‘Culture and the evolution of human cooperation’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1533), pp. 3281–3288. doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0134.
- Sterelny, K. (2016) ‘Cooperation, culture, and conflict’, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 67(1), pp. 31–58. doi:10.1093/bjps/axu024
- Gowlett, J.A. (2016) ‘The discovery of fire by humans: A long and convoluted process’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1696). doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0164.
- Twomey, T. How domesticating fire facilitated the evolution of human cooperation. Biol Philos 29, 89–99 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-013-9402-2
- Kuhn, S.L. and Stiner, M.C. (2019) ‘Hearth and home in the Middle Pleistocene’, Journal of Anthropological Research, 75(3), pp. 305–327. doi:10.1086/704145.
- Balliet, D., & Van Lange, P. A. (2013). Trust, punishment, and cooperation across 18 societies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(4), 363–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613488533
- Hua, S., & Liu, L. (2023). Facilitating the evolution of cooperation through altruistic punishment with Adaptive Feedback. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chaos.2023.113669
- Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2022). Large‐scale cooperation in small‐scale foraging societies. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 31(4), 175–198. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21944