Learning to Learn: How cultural transmission shaped the human mind
How did our ancestors learn to craft tools, control fire, paint on cave walls, and sail across vast oceans — and how were these skills passed down through generations?
By: Janne-Beate Buanes Duke
Published: (Updated: )
A new study explores the deep evolutionary roots of human cultural transmission, offering insights into how our thinking, communication, and social behavior have developed over time.
Deeply rooted in our evolutionary history
The study offers the most comprehensive reconstruction to date of how learning strategies have evolved throughout human history.
“This research allows us to chart, with unprecedented precision, the pathways through which early humans passed on knowledge and skills,” says Francesco d’Errico. “It demonstrates that our capacity for teaching, imitation, and cumulative learning is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history”.
Spanning 3.3 million years, the research draws on archaeological, ethnographic, experimental, and ethological data to analyze how 103 key cultural traits—from stone tools to symbolic burials—were passed from one generation to the next.
A new model for tracing the evolution of learning
To assess how knowledge was transmitted, d’Errico and Colagè developed a groundbreaking, multi-dimensional model that focuses on the timing, setting, and social dynamics of learning. Each cultural trait was scored based on its likely reliance on teaching, imitation, repetition, and other learning strategies—resulting in nearly 2,000 data points that reveal clear evolutionary trends.
“Our model allows us to reconstruct how learning unfolded in deep time,” d’Errico explains. “It provides a critical tool for linking the archaeological record to the emergence of behaviourally modern humans.”
The findings show that as human culture became more complex, so did the ways we learned. By 600,000 years ago, early humans were likely using forms of teaching that involved gestures and possibly even early forms of language. It also identifies a tipping point between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago marking the rise of transmission practices closely tied to the emergence of modern language and behavior.
A new look at early human learning
Finally, this groundbreaking study introduces a new perspective on how our ancestors learned and shared knowledge over time. It explores learning across three dimensions: spatially, whether it occurred up close or from a distance; temporally, whether it happened all at once or in stages; and socially, whether it was passed from one person to another, within groups, or through mutual exchange. The findings reveal that these diverse learning methods evolved alongside increasingly complex tools and ideas. They also suggest that the origins of teaching and communication may date back much earlier than previously believed—well before the emergence of Homo sapiens.
GROUNDBREAKING: Professor Ivan Colagè. has co-authored the new study published in PLOS ONE which offers the most comprehensive reconstruction to date of how learning strategies have evolved in the human lineage.