Cultural evolution beyond the individual: what human collective knowledge adds to high fidelity copying

Abstract This paper examines ways in which cultural evolution theory can treat collective knowledge in human evolution, focusing on how collective knowledge complements high-fidelity copying. We distinguish between two schematic aspects of high-fidelity copying: (1) that cultural learning consists of transmission between individuals, and (2) that cumulative culture requires high-fidelity copying or imitation. After discussing these aspects and reviewing suggestions regarding the need to adapt them, we consider approaches to cultural adaptation that address the first aspect and go beyond high-fidelity copying-based social learning; in particular the notion of Distributed Adaptation (DA), in which knowledge is stored at the group level. We argue that DAs are a subset of collective knowledge phenomena, that they may take part in cumulative culture, and that high-fidelity copying is neither necessary nor sufficient for DA. Finally, we briefly discuss what collective knowledge adds to existing ideas on human evolution and the research avenues that it opens. We show that attention to collective knowledge affects the kinds of cognitive functions that are considered, specifically that it highlights cognitive functions that promote aggregation of information, and that it has the potential to affect the hypotheses about the timing and trajectory of human cultural evolution that are entertained.