'Culture' is defined as information, such as knowledge, beliefs, skills, attitudes or values, that is passed from individual to individual via social (or cultural) transmission and expressed in behaviour or artifacts. 'Cultural evolution' holds that this cultural inheritance system is governed by the same Darwinian processes as gene-based biological evolution. In Part A of this thesis it is argued that as compelling a case can now be made for a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution as Darwin himself presented in The Origin Of Species for biological evolution, If culture does indeed evolve, then it follows that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should broadly resemble that of the science of biological evolution. Hence Part A concludes by outlining a unified science of cultural evolution based on the sub-disciplines of evolutionary biology. Parts B and C comprise original empirical and theoretical work constituting two branches of this science of cultural evolution. Part B describes a series of experiments testing for a number of hypothesised biases in cultural transmission. Evidence was found for a 'social bias' that acts to promote information concerning third-party social relationships over equivalent non-social information, and a 'hierarchical bias' that acts to transform knowledge of everyday events from low-level actions into higher-level goals. Three other hypothesised biases concerning status, anthropomorphism and neoteny were not supported, although each gave rise to potential, future work using this methodology. Part C presents a theoretical investigation into the coevolution of the genetic bases of human mating behaviour and culturally inherited folk beliefs regarding paternity. Gene-culture coevolution and agent-based models suggested that beliefs in 'partible paternity' (that more than one man can father a child) create a new more polygamous form of society compared with beliefs in singular paternity (that only one man can father a child).

The chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes, Pongidae) among all other living species, is our closest relation, with whom we last shared a common ancestor less than five million years ago. These African apes make and use a rich and varied kit of tools. Of the primates, and even of the other Great Apes, they are the only consistent and habitual tool-users. Chimpanzees meet the criteria of working definitions of culture as originally devised for human beings in socio-cultural anthropology. They show sex differences in using tools to obtain and to process a variety of plant and animal foods. The technological gap between chimpanzees and human societies living by foraging (hunter-gatherers) is surprisingly narrow, at least for food-getting. Different communities of chimpanzees have different tool-kits, and not all of this regional and local variation can be explained by the varied physical and biotic environments in which they live. Some differences are likely customs based on non-functionally derived and symbolically encoded traditions. Chimpanzees serve as heuristic, referential models for the reconstruction of cultural evolution in apes and humans from an ancestral hominoid. However, chimpanzees are not humans, and key differences exist between them, though many of these apparent contrasts remain to be explored empirically and theoretically.

Text in English / This study offers a close look at Andrew Niccol’s (b 1964) satirical film S1mOne from a biocultural perspective emphasising the technological simulation of a Hollywood celebrity and the farce ensuing from her creation. The film is based on Niccol’s assumption that the hypertrophied culture into which he places his cultural object will be one in which human traits of sociality will be well advanced and the highly demanding genre of satire will be entertaining, persuasive, and on occasion punitive in its ridicule of Hollywood. The study makes a contribution to the idea that a cultural object/text operates as a rapid mechanism for propagating cognition — it shows how Niccol has adapted to less than optimal conditions in his world of Hollywood — in this case he parodies the role of the director of Hollywood films in the figure of Taransky. Cognition is understood as that series of mental processes which include attention, memory, learning (from mimicry as well as other forms), problem solving, ratiocination, and making decisions. Niccol relies on his audience's embodied capacities and skills of recognition, thinking, feeling, remembering, and accounting for his message to be understood. Niccol’s technical skill in editing his narrative to emphasise the satire of the narrative of Taransky and Simone is a critical part of the film’s success. Interpersonal and social propagation of cognition is achieved through reference to other cultural artefacts recalling a variety of similar ideas used in film and other visual creations. The cultural significance of the simulacrum, Simone, is that she is a vehicle for and a form of socially propagated cognition. The powerful imagistic impression of film helps to structure internalised cognitive artefacts in the viewers who are expected to reflect on their habits of viewing and thinking. When a film, artwork, poem or novel is analysed, then such a cultural object becomes a vehicle of and for propagating cognition. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

Text in English / This study offers a close look at Andrew Niccol’s (b 1964) satirical film S1mOne from a biocultural perspective emphasising the technological simulation of a Hollywood celebrity and the farce ensuing from her creation. The film is based on Niccol’s assumption that the hypertrophied culture into which he places his cultural object will be one in which human traits of sociality will be well advanced and the highly demanding genre of satire will be entertaining, persuasive, and on occasion punitive in its ridicule of Hollywood. The study makes a contribution to the idea that a cultural object/text operates as a rapid mechanism for propagating cognition — it shows how Niccol has adapted to less than optimal conditions in his world of Hollywood — in this case he parodies the role of the director of Hollywood films in the figure of Taransky. Cognition is understood as that series of mental processes which include attention, memory, learning (from mimicry as well as other forms), problem solving, ratiocination, and making decisions. Niccol relies on his audience's embodied capacities and skills of recognition, thinking, feeling, remembering, and accounting for his message to be understood. Niccol’s technical skill in editing his narrative to emphasise the satire of the narrative of Taransky and Simone is a critical part of the film’s success. Interpersonal and social propagation of cognition is achieved through reference to other cultural artefacts recalling a variety of similar ideas used in film and other visual creations. The cultural significance of the simulacrum, Simone, is that she is a vehicle for and a form of socially propagated cognition. The powerful imagistic impression of film helps to structure internalised cognitive artefacts in the viewers who are expected to reflect on their habits of viewing and thinking. When a film, artwork, poem or novel is analysed, then such a cultural object becomes a vehicle of and for propagating cognition. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)