The Discovery and Reach of Animal Culture

Speaker: Andy Whiten (University of St Andrews, UK)
Abstract: Culture was once thought a unique human attribute, but research in recent decades has revealed that social learning, traditions and culture are surprisingly widely distributed in the animal world. Research on these topics has particularly blossomed in the present century, producing a flurry of exciting new discoveries in species as diverse as primates, whales, birds, fish and even insects. In this lecture I offer a brief historical overview of how the field has developed to discover an undreamt-of richness in animal cultures, and I will highlight some of the most recent and fascinating findings. Implications of the discovery of animal cultures include their relevance for understanding the origins of our own distinctive cultural natures, extensions to the scope of evolutionary biology, and enhancement of efforts to conserve endangered species.
Bio: Andrew Whiten is Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology at the University of St Andrews, UK. He is an elected Fellow of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. His research interests span the ontogenetic development and evolution of social learning and culture, studied particularly in children and non-human primates, the latter both in the wild and in captive, experimental contexts. In recent years he has endeavoured to collate key findings illuminating the reach of cultural phenomena more widely in the animal kingdom, across behavioural domains and throughout animals' lifetimes.
www.dysoc.org/cesmodules/anima...
Module description: Animal Cultures: Core Discoveries and New Horizons. This module offers an overview of core discoveries and new developments in the study of animal cultures. The significance of animal culture for evolutionary biology and ecology, understanding human cultural evolution, and conservation are highlighted.
Module designers:
Andy Whiten (University of St Andrews, UK)
Lucy Aplin (Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour, Germany)
Nicolas Claidière (CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, France)
Rachel Kendal (University of Durham, UK)