Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:32:58.914Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Childhood and the evolution of higher-effort teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Mark Nielsen
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, [email protected]://www.psy.uq.edu.au/people/personal.html?id=636
Ceri Shipton
Affiliation:
British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, GPO 00100, Kenya McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, United [email protected]://socialscience.uq.edu.au/ceri-shipton

Abstract

Kline presents an excellent synthesis of teaching theory and research, with cogent arguments regarding its prevalence. In this, she claims that “active teaching” is human specific, and presents tangible reasons why. But in doing so, she overlooks a critical aspect of the human condition that may have arisen only recently in our evolutionary history: Childhood as a life stage.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beyene, Y., Katoh, S., WoldeGabriel, G., Hart, W. K., Uto, K., Sudo, M., Kondo, M., Hyodoi, M., Renne, P. R., Suwa, G. & Asfaw, B. (2013) The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 110:1584–91. Available at: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/5/1584.full Google Scholar
Bogin, B. (1990) The evolution of human childhood. Bioscience 40:1625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogin, B. (1998) Evolutionary and biological aspects of childhood. In: Biosocial perspectives on children, ed. Panter-Brick, C., pp. 1044. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Delagnes, A. & Roche, H. (2005) Late Pliocene hominid knapping skills: The case of Lokalalei 2C, West Turkana, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 48:435–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De La Torre, I. (2004) The Omo revisited: Evaluating the technological skills of pliocene hominids. Current Anthropology 45:439–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Errico, F. & Stringer, C. B. (2011) Evolution, revolution or saltation scenario for the emergence of modern cultures? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1567):1060–69.Google Scholar
Hopkinson, T., Nowell, A. & White, M. (2013) Life histories, metapopulation ecology, and innovation in the Acheulian. PaleoAnthropology 61:76.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J. & Hurtado, A. M. (2000) A theory of human life history evolution: Diet, intelligence, and longevity Evolutionary Anthropology 4:156–85.Google Scholar
Lepre, C. J., Roche, H., Kent, D. V., Harmand, S., Quinn, R. L., Brugal, J.-P., Texier, P.-J., Lenoble, A. & Feibel, C. S. (2011) An earlier origin for the Acheulian. Nature 477:8285. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7362/full/nature10372.html CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Locke, J. L. & Bogin, B. (2006) Language and life history: A new perspective on the development and evolution of human language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:259325.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Machin, A., Hosfield, R. & Mithen, S. (2007) Why are some handaxes symmetrical? Testing the influence of handaxe morphology on butchery effectiveness. Journal of Archaeological Science 34:883–93.Google Scholar
Nielsen, M. (2012a) Childhood and advances in human tool use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35:3031.Google Scholar
Nielsen, M. (2012b) Imitation, pretend play and childhood: Essential elements in the evolution of human culture? Journal of Comparative Psychology 126:170–81.Google Scholar
Nowell, A. & White, M. J. (2012) Growing up in the Middle Pleistocene: Life history strategies and their relationship to Acheulian industries. In: Stone tools and the evolution of human cognition, ed. Nowell, A. & Davidson, I., pp. 6782. University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Petraglia, M., LaPorta, P. & Paddayya, K. (1999) The first Acheulean quarry in India: Stone tool manufacture, biface morphology, and behaviours. Journal of Anthropological Research 55:3970.Google Scholar
Powell, A., Shennan, S. & Thomas, M. G. (2009) Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 324(5932):1298–301. doi:10.1126/science.1170165.Google Scholar
Robson, S. L. & Wood, B. (2008) Hominin life history: Reconstruction and evolution. Journal of Anatomy 212:394425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shipton, C. (2013) A million years of hominin sociality and cognition: Acheulean bifaces in the Hunsgi-Baichbal Valley, India. Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports).Google Scholar
Shipton, C., Clarkson, C., Pal, J. N., Jones, S. C., Roberts, R. G., Harris, C., Gupta, M. C., Ditchfield, P. W. & Petraglia, M. D. (2013) Generativity, hierarchical action and recursion in the Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic transition: A perspective from the Son Valley, India. Journal of Human Evolution 65:93108. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23746433 Google Scholar
Shipton, C., Petraglia, M. & Paddayya, K. (2009) Stone tool experiments and reduction methods at the Acheulean site of Isampur Quarry, India. Antiquity 83:769–85.Google Scholar
Smith, T. M., Toussaint, M., Reid, D. J., Olejniczak, A. J. & Hublin, J.-J. (2007) Rapid dental development in a Middle Paleolithic Belgian Neanderthal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:20220–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stout, D., Apel, J., Commander, J. & Roberts, M. (2014) Late Acheulean technology and cognition at Boxgrove, UK. Journal of Archaeological Science 41:576–90.Google Scholar
Toth, N. (1985) The Oldowan reassessed: A close look at early stone artifacts. Journal of Archaeological Science 12:101–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, T. (2002) Archaeology and cognitive evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25(3):389438.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed