Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture
Open accessAbstract
Some researchers have claimed that chimpanzee and human culture rest on homologous cognitive and learning mechanisms. While clearly there are some homologous mechanisms, we argue here that there are some different mechanisms at work as well. Chimpanzee cultural traditions represent behavioural biases of different populations, all within the species’ existing cognitive repertoire (what we call the ‘zone of latent solutions’) that are generated by founder effects, individual learning and mostly product-oriented (rather than process-oriented) copying. Human culture, in contrast, has the distinctive characteristic that it accumulates modifications over time (what we call the ‘ratchet effect’). This difference results from the facts that (i) human social learning is more oriented towards process than product and (ii) unique forms of human cooperation lead to active teaching, social motivations for conformity and normative sanctions against non-conformity. Together, these unique processes of social learning and cooperation lead to humans’ unique form of cumulative cultural evolution.
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The ratchet effect describes the unique capacity of Homo Sapiens to accumulate cultural knowledge and transfer skills over generations.
“The ratchet effect describes the unique capacity of Homo Sapiens to accumulate cultural knowledge and transfer skills over generations.”
From Human Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence (2025) · cites this paper as Tennie et al., 2009
Accumulated learning over generations enables the ratchet effect, making cumulative cultural innovations possible.
“The accumulated learning over generations enables the ratchet effect, which makes it possible for humans to develop cumulative cultural innovations in complex toolkits, technologies and social systems that could never be invented by a single human without some degree of socialisation into the system (Legare and Nielsen 2015; Tennie et al. 2009; Mesoudi and Thornton 2018).”
From Cultural Evolution of Religion, Spirituality and Ritual: Impacts On Human Cooperation (2024) · cites this paper as Tennie et al. 2009
Type-2 processes include biological evolution, cultural evolutionary ratchet processes such as tools or language, and social processes such as emergence of norms policing joint action.
“The term is designed to describe both familiar processes of biological evolution but also the cultural evolutionary 'ratchet' processes discussed by Michael Tomasello and colleagues: processes such as the cultural evolution of tools or language (Tennie et al., 2009). Social processes such as the emergence of norms that police the coordination of joint action are also included (see Heras-Escribano”
From Traces of thinking: a stigmergic approach to 4E cognition (2025) · cites this paper as Tennie et al., 2009
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“…makes it possible for humans to develop cumulative cultural innovations in complex toolkits, technologies and social systems that could never be invented by a single human without some degree of socialisation into the system (Legare and Nielsen 2015; Tennie et al. 2009; Mesoudi and Thornton 2018).”
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Background
- Authors
- Tennie, C., Call, J., & Tomasello, M.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2009-08-27
- Volume
- 364
- Issue
- 1528
- Pages
- 2405-2415
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC2865079
- OpenAlex
- W2106583109
- Cited by
- 1,187
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 51 · 2025: 107 · 2024: 86 · 2023: 111 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 135 · 2020: 110 · 2019: 85 · 2018: 89 · 2017: 55 · 2016: 67 · 2015: 44 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 52 · 2012: 47
- FWCI
- 832.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- cumulative culture, ratchet effect, chimpanzee culture, social learning, social learning theory, human cooperation, teaching, conformity, cultural evolution, founder effect
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Child, Preschool, Pan troglodytes, Culture, Biological Evolution, Female, Gorilla gorilla, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Male, Motor Activity, Pongo pygmaeus, Psychomotor Performance, Social Behavior, Species Specificity, Hominidae, Pan paniscus
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