Cultural complexity correlated to population size

I found this interesting since I think it goes along well with what we see in wild chimpanzee populations. Recent work from the Goualougo Triangle and Loango National Park have been identifying the most complex tool kits found to date, and both of these sites occur in the rather broad, unfragmented range of the central subspecies (Pan troglodytes troglodytes). -MA

Population size predicts technological complexity in Oceania
By Bayes from the Gene Expression (gnxp.com) blog

Here is a far-reaching and crucially relevant question for those of us seeking to understand the evolution of culture: Is there any relationship between population size and tool kit diversity or complexity? This question is important because, if met with an affirmative answer, then the emergence of modern human culture may be explained by changes in population size, rather than a species-wide cognitive explosion. Some attempts at an answer have led to models which make certain predictions about what we expect to see when populations vary. For instance, Shennan (2001) argues that in smaller populations, the number of people adopting a particular cultural variant is more likely to be affected by sampling variation. So in larger populations, learners potentially have access to a greater number of experts, which means adaptive variants are less likely to be lost by chance (Henrich, 2004).

Models aside, and existing empirical evidence is limited with the results being mixed. I previously mentioned the gradual loss of complexity in Tasmanian tool kits after the population was isolated from mainland Australia. Elsewhere, Golden (2006) highlighted the case of isolated Polar Inuit, who lost kayaks, the bow and arrow and other technologies when their knowledgeable experts were wiped out during a plague.Yet two systematic studies (Collard et al., 2005; Read, 2008) of the Inuit case found no evidence for population size being a predictor of technological complexity.

To read more go to: http://www.gnxp.com/wp/human-evolution/population-size-predicts-technological-complexity-in-oceania

Chimpanzee Tool technology in the Ndoki Forest: