The Evolution of Culture in Animals

by John Tyler Bonner

Animals do have culture, maintains this delightfully illustrated and provocative book, which cites a number of fascinating instances of animal communication and learning. John Bonner traces the origins of culture back to the early biological evolution of animals and provides examples of five categories of behavior leading to nonhuman culture: physical dexterity, relations with other species, auditory communication within a species, geographic locations, and inventions or innovations. Defining culture as the transmission of information by behavioral rather than genetical means, he demonstrates the continuum between the traits we find in animals and those we often consider uniquely human.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Anthropology, Evolution

Paperback

First published May 1, 1980

About the author

John Tyler Bonner is the George M. Moffett Professor Emeritus of Biology at Princeton University, a pioneer in the use of cellular slime molds to understand evolution and development, and one of the world's leading experts on cellular slime molds.

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book! His writing is clear and clever. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot, which is surprising since it was written in 1980. A note: this book is not a book filled with examples of culture in animals. Instead it covers lots of evolutionary ground, from division of labor in slime moulds to— yes— tool-using chimps.

I also loved the way he described other authors’ research. Sad that this style of writing is less approved in today’s world.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting, but it's not clear that beyond the early premise that culture has the ability to affect the expression of genes, it works out very much more. The connection between evolution and culture is too attenuated to show what, beyond this possibility, the reasonable conceptual linkage helps us to understand.