The DOI matches its Crossref record; 42 of the 46 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Why Was Human Evolution So Rapid?
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The ratchet effect explains why human evolution accelerated during the last 100,000 years, although it started slowly.
“It explains why human evolution accelerated during the last 100,000 years, although it started slowly (Tattersall, 2017).”
From Human Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence (2025) · cites this paper as Tattersall, 2017
Citations
Cites
Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
Levinson, M. H. (2006) · ETC.: A Review of General Semantics · doi:10.66774/etc_6303_351 · Cited by 3,581
Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2004) · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226712130.001.0001 · Cited by 2,793
The Major Features of Evolution
Simpson, G. G. (1953) · Columbia University Press eBooks · doi:10.7312/simp93764 · Cited by 2,091
THE MAJOR FEATURES OF EVOLUTION
Olson, E. C., & Simpson, G. G. (1954) · Evolution · doi:10.2307/2405671 · Cited by 2,029
(1945) · Annals of the Entomological Society of America · doi:10.1093/aesa/38.3.396 · Cited by 1,859
Simpson, G. G. (2005) · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · doi:10.1007/0-306-47468-9_7 · Cited by 1,657
Phylogenetic Patterns and the Evolutionary Process.
Funk, V. A., Eldredge, N., & Cracraft, J. L. (1981) · Brittonia · doi:10.2307/2806339 · Cited by 794
Wood, B. A., & Mark Collard, A. (1999) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.284.5411.65 · Cited by 712
Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process.
Jeffery, C. R., Lumsden, C. J., & Wilson, E. O. (1982) · Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · doi:10.2307/2067089 · Cited by 706
2.5-million-year-old stone tools from Gona, Ethiopia
Semaw, S., Renne, P. R., Harris, J. W. K., Feibel, C. S., Bernor, R., Fesseha, N., & Mowbray, K. M. (1997) · Nature · doi:10.1038/385333a0 · Cited by 621
Gabunia, L., Vekua, A., Lordkipanidze, D., Swisher, C. C., Ferring, R., Justus, A., Nioradze, M., Tvalchrelidze, M., Antón, S. C., Bosinski, G., et al. (2000) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.288.5468.1019 · Cited by 513
Environment and Behavior of 2.5-Million-Year-Old Bouri Hominids
de Heinzelin, J., Clark, J. D., White, T. D., Hart, W. K., Renne, P. R., WoldeGabriel, G., Beyene, Y., & Vrba, E. S. (1999) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.284.5414.625 · Cited by 507
Arboreality and Bipedality in the Hadar Hominids
Susman, R. L., Stern, J. T., & Jungers, W. L. (1984) · Folia Primatologica · doi:10.1159/000156176 · Cited by 457
An earlier origin for the Acheulian
Lepre, C., Roche, H., Kent, D., Harmand, S., Quinn, R., Brugal, J.-P., Texier, P., Lenoble, A., & Feibel, C. (2011) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature10372 · Cited by 454
New hominin genus from eastern Africa shows diverse middle Pliocene lineages
Leakey, M. G., Spoor, F., Brown, F. H., Gathogo, P. N., Kiarie, C., Leakey, L., & McDougall, I. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35068500 · Cited by 409
(2002) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.40-2181 · Cited by 374
Holloway, R. L., Broadfield, D. C., & Yuan, M. S. (2004) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/0471663573 · Cited by 366
American Journal of Primatology
Garber, P. A. (2016) · The International Encyclopedia of Primatology · doi:10.1002/9781119179313.wbprim0112 · Cited by 350
Brain Size, Cranial Morphology, Climate, and Time Machines [and Comments and Reply]
Beals, K. L., Smith, C. L., Dodd, S. M., Angel, J. L., Armstrong, E., Blumenberg, B., Girgis, F. G., Turkel, S., Gibson, K. R., Henneberg, M., et al. (1984) · Current Anthropology · doi:10.1086/203138 · Cited by 332
4,300-Year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology
Mercader, J., Barton, H. J., Gillespie, J., Harris, J., Kuhn, S. L., Tyler, R. T., & Boesch, C. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0607909104 · Cited by 308
Henke, W., & Tattersall, I. (2007) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-33761-4 · Cited by 265
Self-citationMasters of the planet: the search for our human origins
(2012) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.50-2158 · Cited by 240
Australopithecus sediba at 1.977 Ma and Implications for the Origins of the Genus Homo
Pickering, R., Dirks, P. H. G. M., Jinnah, Z., de Ruiter, D. J., Churchill, S. E., Herries, A. I. R., Woodhead, J. D., Hellström, J., & Berger, L. R. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1203697 · Cited by 211
Henke, W., & Tattersall, I. (2015) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-39979-4 · Cited by 192
Self-citationDécouverte d’un nouvel hominidé à Dmanissi (Transcaucasie, Géorgie)
Gabounia, L., de Lumley, M., Vekua, A., Lordkipanidze, D., & de Lumley, H. (2002) · Comptes Rendus Palevol · doi:10.1016/s1631-0683(02)00032-5 · Cited by 173
Neanderthals and modern humans in the European landscape during the last glaciation
Catto, N. (2005) · Quaternary International · doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2004.11.022 · Cited by 167
Oldest Homo and Pliocene biogeography of the Malawi Rift
Schrenk, F., Bromage, T. G., Betzler, C., Ring, U., & Juwayeyi, Y. M. (1993) · Nature · doi:10.1038/365833a0 · Cited by 151
GENES, MIND, AND CULTURE: THE COEVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
Lumsden, C. J. 1., & Wilson, E. O. (1981) · doi:10.1142/5786#t=toc · Cited by 130
Hominid Brain Evolution: Testing Climatic, Ecological, and Social Competition Models
Bailey, D. H., & Geary, D. C. (2009) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-008-9054-0 · Cited by 116
An Evolutionary Framework for the Acquisition of Symbolic Cognition by Homo sapiens
Tattersall, I. (2008) · Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews · doi:10.3819/ccbr.2008.30006 · Cited by 112
Self-citationNeanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape During the Last Glaciation
van Andel, T. H., Davies, W., & Olszewski, D. I. (2006) · PaleoAnthropology · Cited by 104
Précis ofGenes, Mind, and Culture
Lumsden, C. J., & Wilson, E. O. (1982) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00010128 · Cited by 91
Stone, A. C., Battistuzzi, F. U., Kubatko, L. S., Perry, G. H., Trudeau, E. D., Lin, H.-M., & Kumar, S. (2010) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0096 · Cited by 73
Messager, E., Lebreton, V., Marquer, L., Ermolli, E. R., Orain, R., Renault–Miskovsky, J., Lordkipanidze, D., Despriée, J., Peretto, C., & Arzarello, M. (2010) · Quaternary Science Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.09.008 · Cited by 72
Matsudaira, K., & Ishida, T. (2010) · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.01.032 · Cited by 65
Tattersall, I., & Schwartz, J. H. (2009) · Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences · doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 · Cited by 65
Self-citationSelection for smaller brains in Holocene human evolution
Hawks, J. (2011) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1102.5604 · Cited by 45
Matano, S., & Hirasaki, E. (1997) · American Journal of Physical Anthropology · doi:10.1002/(sici)1096-8644(199706)103:2 · Cited by 36
18 Hominin Paleodiets: The Contribution of Stable Isotopes
Sponheimer, M., & Lee‐Thorp, J. A. (2007) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-33761-4_18 · Cited by 26
Mark Collard, A., & Wood, B. A. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-27800-6_51-2 · Cited by 25
Hominin Paleodiets: The Contribution of Stable Isotopes
Sponheimer, M., & Lee‐Thorp, J. A. (2014) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-39979-4_18 · Cited by 5
(2005)
Flagged first, then by citations
4 of the 46 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Schwartz, J. H., & Tattersall, I. (2005). The human fossil record, vol. 3: Genera Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Orrorin, and overview. New York: Wiley-Liss.
- Tobias, P. V. (1995). The communication of the dead: Earliest vestiges of the origin of articulate language. Amsterdam: Kroon Lectures, Stichting Nederlands Museum voor Anthropologie en Praehisoire.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Miyagawa, S., Lesure, C. L., & Nóbrega, V. A. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00115 · Cited by 43
Human Paleontology and Prehistory
Hovers, E., & Marom, A. (2017) · Vertebrate paleobiology and paleoanthroplogy series/Vertebrate paleobiology and paleoanthropology series · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-46646-0 · Cited by 38
The material record and the antiquity of language
Tattersall, I. (2017) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.01.043 · Cited by 36
Self-citationGenes with human-specific features are primarily involved with brain, immune and metabolic evolution
Bitar, M., Kuiper, S., O’Brien, E. A., & Barry, G. (2019) · BMC Bioinformatics · doi:10.1186/s12859-019-2886-2 · Cited by 27
The controversial origins of war and peace: apes, foragers, and human evolution
Glowacki, L. (2024) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.106618 · Cited by 19
Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago
Miyagawa, S., DeSalle, R., Nóbrega, V. A., Nitschke, R., Okumura, M., & Tattersall, I. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1503900 · Cited by 20
Self-citationMyths About the Evolution of War: Apes, Foragers, and the Stories We TellPreprint
Glowacki, L. (2023) · doi:10.32942/x2jc71 · Cited by 7
Human Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Preiss, D. D., & Sternberg, R. J. (2025) · Creativity. Theories – Research - Applications · doi:10.2478/ctra-2025-0012 · Cited by 5
“It explains why human evolution accelerated during the last 100,000 years, although it started slowly (Tattersall, 2017).”
An Emergentist Account of Language in the Brain—Seeking Neural Synergies Behind Human Uniqueness
Bourguignon, N. J., & Bue, S. L. (2025) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn_a_02331 · Cited by 4
Tuniz, C., & Vipraio, P. T. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-36522-6_12 · Cited by 1
Rapid expansion of synaptic complexity as a key contributor to cognitive growth in early humansPreprint
Lepski, G. A., Arévalo, A. L., de Camargo, P. S., Nunes, K., Lemes, R. B., Ferraz, T., Strauss, A. M., & Miyagawa, S. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.04.09.648028 · Cited by 1
Tattersall, I. (2018) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/nyas.13881
Self-citationSUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES OF CLASSIC PSYCHEDELIC SUBSTANCES USERS
Bienemann, B. (2022) · doi:10.17771/pucrio.acad.59337 · Cited by 1
Macionis, V. (2023) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2023.148558
From alalus to sapiens: human evolution and uniqueness
Ataria, Y., & Marom, A. (2024) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-443-15684-7.00044-0
O’Brien, M. J., & Bentley, R. A. (2024) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192882578.003.0007
Metadata
- Authors
- Tattersall, I.
- Affiliations
- American Museum of Natural History (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tattersall, Ian
- ORCID
- Tattersall, Ian
- Venue
- Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Published
- 2017
- Pages
- 1-9
- ISSN
- 1877-9077 (ISSN-L)
- 1877-9085
- OpenAlex
- W2580211825
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 14.93
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Vertebrate paleobiology and paleoanthroplogy series/Vertebrate paleobiology and paleoanthropology series (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- human evolution, Homo, evolutionary rates, material culture, hominin dispersal, population fragmentation, effective population size, fixation probability, brain size reduction, algorithm efficiency, gene-culture coevolution
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
