Culture as an Anti-Darwinian Process

Abstract

Humans began their first evolution or cultural change only after they found that the environment in which they were living had changed or that they could not compete with other, stronger carnivores. During this process, humans began to learn how to use simple tools and to create more complicated cultural traditions. Thereafter, and as a result of population growth on the one hand and of the constraints in living spaces and resources available on the other, some groups of humans began to migrate out of Africa. This emigration was a response-to-challenge process, and the earliest humans coming out of Africa must have been physically inferior to those who continued to stay in Africa. In short, it was humans’ physical weakness that eventually led to the establishment of agricultural societies and of more advanced civilizations.