The niche construction of cultural complexity: interactions between innovations, population size and the environment.

ABSTRACT: Niche construction is a process through which organisms alter their environments and, in doing so, influence or change the selective pressures to which they are subject. 'Cultural niche construction' refers specifically to the effect of cultural traits on the selective environments of other biological or cultural traits and may be especially important in human evolution. In addition, the relationship between population size and cultural accumulation has been the subject of extensive debate, in part because anthropological studies have demonstrated a significant association between population size and toolkit complexity in only a subset of studied cultures. Here, we review the role of cultural innovation in constructing human evolutionary niches and introduce a new model to describe the acc

SUBMITTER: Fogarty L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5665815 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature