Victoria Reyes-García, Maximilien Guèze, Isabel Díaz-Reviriego, Romain Duda, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Sandrine Gallois, Lucentezza Napitupulu, Martí Orta-Martínez, andAili Pyhälä
Victoria Reyes-García is Research Professor at ICREA (Pg. Lluís Companys, 08010 Barcelona, Spain) and at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB; C/de les Columnes, UAB, E-08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain [victoria.reyes@uab.cat]). Isabel Díaz-Reviriego is a Research Associate at ICTA-UAB (same address). Romain Duda is a doctoral student at ICTA-UAB (same address) and at UMR 7206 Éco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, CNRS (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Musée de l’Homme, Paris). Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares is a Research Associate at ICTA-UAB (same address) and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Metapopulation Research Centre, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki (PO Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland). Sandrine Gallois is a Research Associate at ICTA-UAB (same address) and at UMR 7206 Éco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, CNRS (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Musée de l’Homme, Paris). Maximilien Guèze is a Postdoctoral Fellow at ICTA-UAB (same address). Lucentezza Napitupulu is a doctoral student at ICTA-UAB (same address). Martí Orta-Martínez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at ICTA-UAB (same address). Aili Pyhälä was a Postdoctoral Fellow at ICTA-UAB (same address) and is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Metapopulation Research Centre, Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki (PO Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland).
SUBMITTED: Mar 09, 2015
ACCEPTED: Nov 02, 2015
ONLINE: Nov 3, 2016
Abstract
Researchers have argued that the behavioral adaptations that explain the success of our species are partially cultural, that is, cumulative and socially transmitted. Thus, understanding the adaptive nature of culture is crucial to understand human evolution. We use a cross-cultural framework and empirical data purposely collected to test whether culturally transmitted and individually appropriated knowledge provides individual returns in terms of hunting yields and health and, by extension, nutritional status, a proxy for individual adaptive success. Data were collected in three subsistence-oriented societies: the Tsimane’ (Amazon), the Baka (Congo Basin), and the Punan (Borneo). Results suggest that variations in individual levels of local environmental knowledge relate to individual hunting returns and self-reported health but not to nutritional status. We argue that this paradox can be explained through the prevalence of sharing: individuals achieving higher returns to their knowledge transfer them to the rest of the population, which explains the lack of association between knowledge and nutritional status. The finding is in consonance with previous research highlighting the importance of cultural traits favoring group success but pushes it forward by elucidating the mechanisms through which individual- and group-level adaptive forces interact.
