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The Role of Play Objects and Object Play in Human Cognitive Evolution and Innovation Coversheet This is the publisher’s PDF (Version of Record) of the article. This is the final published version of the article. How to cite this publication: Riede, F., Johannsen, N. N., Högberg, A., Nowell, A., & Lombard, M. (2018). The role of play objects and object play in human cognitive evolution and innovation. Evolutionary Anthropology, 27(1), 46- 59. DOI: 10.1002/evan.21555 Publication metadata Title: The role of play objects and object play in human cognitive evolution and innovation Author(s): Felix Riede, Niels N. Johannsen, Anders Högberg, April Nowell & Marlize Lombard Journal: Evolutionary Anthropology DOI/Link: 10.1002/evan.21555 Document version: Publisher’s PDF (Version of Record) Document license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 General Rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. If the document is published under a Creative Commons license, this applies instead of the general rights. This coversheet template is made available by AU Library Version 1.0, December 2017 Accepted: 12 October 2017 DOI: 10.1002/evan.21555 ARTICLE The role of play objects and object play in human cognitive evolution and innovation Felix Riede1,2,3 | Niels N. Johannsen1,2 | Anders Hogberg€ 4,6,7 | April Nowell5 | Marlize Lombard6,7 1Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University Moesgård, Denmark 2Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Denmark 3Centre for Biocultural History, Aarhus University, Denmark 4Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Sweden 5Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada 6Centre for Anthropological Research and Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa 7Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS), Wallenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa Correspondence Felix Riede, Moesgård Alle 20, building Abstract 4215, 129, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark. In this contribution, we address a major puzzle in the evolution of human material culture: If matur- Email: [email protected] ing individuals just learn their parental generation’s material culture, then what is the origin of key innovations as documented in the archeological record? We approach this question by coupling a Funding information The meetings and conversations that led to life-history model of the costs and benefits of experimentation with a niche-construction perspec- this article were supported by the South tive. Niche-construction theory suggests that the behavior of organisms and their modification of Africa-Denmark collaboration initiative at the world around them have important evolutionary ramifications by altering developmental Aarhus University, the Danish Agency for settings and selection pressures. Part of Homo sapiens’ niche is the active provisioning of children Science, Technology, and Innovation’s International Network Programme grant with play objects — sometimes functional miniatures of adult tools — and the encouragement of #5132-00026B (https://ufm.dk/forskning- object play, such as playful knapping with stones. Our model suggests that salient material culture og-innovation/rad-og-udvalg/dff/fonden). innovation may occur or be primed in a late childhood or adolescence sweet spot when cognitive The research of Hogberg€ and Lombard is and physical abilities are sufficiently mature but before the full onset of the concerns and costs funded by an African Origins Platform Grant (# 98815) awarded to Lombard by associated with reproduction. We evaluate the model against a series of archeological cases and the National Research Foundation of South make suggestions for future research. Africa (http://www.nrf.ac.za). The research of Hogberg€ is also funded by the Swedish KEYWORDS Research Council (Dnr 721-2014-2100; http://www.vr.se). play objects, object play, niche construction, innovation, creativity 1 | INTRODUCTION: CULTURAL maintenance of these material culture traditions, although the pre- EVOLUTION AT PLAY cise modes of learning and teaching employed by ancient hominins remain debated.1,2 Modes of high-fidelity transmission are prized While by no means uniquely human, the reliance of Homo sapiens on because they reduce the costs of learning the many routines and the material culture as a key adaptive feature is more pronounced than it vast reserve of knowledge of which human culture is composed. is in any other extant or extinct hominin. It is widely acknowledged Such transmission is the backbone of the creation and long-term per- that high-fidelity cultural transmission is key to the long-term sistence of the material culture traditions identified in, especially, the ....................................................................................................................................................................................... This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. VC 2018 The Authors Evolutionary Anthropology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 46 | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/evan Evolutionary Anthropology. 2018;27:46–59. RIEDE ET AL. | 47 Stone Age archeological record. Yet if individuals growing up within distributed over human evolutionary history. Indeed, the bulk of prehis- a particular society learn just their parents’ generations’ material cul- tory and many parts of history can be described as quite static and con- ture, then what is the origin of major innovations, as also docu- servative, especially with regard to complex multi-component mented in the archeological record? technologies. Such innovations first began to characterize human mate- Recently, different modes of social learning have been proposed as rial culture behavior with the emergence of Homo sapiens in sub-Saharan generators of innovations. One of these modes, intentional teaching, Africa about 300,000 years ago. Especially since about 100,000 years has received much attention as an evolved feature of uniquely human ago, we see a flourishing of material culture diversity in the African Mid- social learning that strengthens fidelity in cultural transmission while dle Stone Age.29 Yet, with the global establishment of modern humans, keeping costs low when learning complex, cognitively opaque skills some periods and places still appear to be more strongly associated with such as the making of multi-component tools, weaving, or similarly innovations than others. Moreover, innovations often come in clusters. intricate techno-behaviors.2–6 Cross-cultural research underlines that it We argue that widespread innovation is not seen earlier and innova- is in economically and culturally highly valued domains that teaching is tions in complex technologies are not more frequent in later prehistory particularly emphasized.7 Further, observational and experimental field because of the costs and risks associated with tinkering. Salient innova- studies in cultural psychology have shown that different modes of tions within domains of complex technology are difficult because they are teaching may lead to significantly different degrees of innovation examples of ill-structured tasks in which the problem does not directly among older children and young adults. Such studies have also demon- provide a solution.30 The efficacy of novel manipulations cannot be pre- strated that those differing degrees of creative flexibility are trans- dicted with confidence.31 Beyond that, trial-and-error exploration and ferred to other domains of activity beyond that originally taught.8 self-initiated learning is costly because of the time it takes, the cognitive Hence, when intentional teaching is thought of as interplay between resources it consumes, and the inherent risk of failure.32 It is here that the transfer of skills, abstract concepts, rules and strategies, it not only play, including but not limited to play with miniature replicas of complex imparts knowledge, but also facilitates creative problem solving and tools, becomes important. In contrast to accepted wisdom, which sees provides the scaffolding for reorganizing and “playing” with ideas until play as purposeless, the phylogenetic depth of play behavior suggests that they produce unexpected or novel outcomes and innovations.9 Scaf- it is both functional and adaptive, especially in contexts of social learn- folding may not be entirely absent in other primates,10 but when ing.33 Human play often strongly reflects adult behaviors.34,35 Fantasy coupled with particular social learning strategies, intentional teaching in play allows children, to some degree, to think through the consequences
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