Ratchets and Replacement: The Potential Role of Cultural Accumulation in the Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans

Abstract

The replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans is often explained in terms of an adaptive advantage held by modern humans that is related to cognition. This article explores the possibility that the adaptive advantage of modern humans was related to accumulated cultural knowledge rather than genetically controlled cognitive traits. Using a fictional account of an experiment with social learning robots, the argument is made that differences in meta-population size and differences in the timing of the onset of technological innovations might have led to a disparity between Neanderthals and modern humans in accumulated cultural knowledge. This disparity offers a plausible explanatory framework for the adaptive advantage of modern humans during the expansion into Eurasia.