Data from: Cultural evolution of systematically structured behaviour in a non-human primate

Culture pervades human life and is at the origin of the success of our species. A wide range of other animals have culture too, but often in a limited form that does not complexify through the gradual accumulation of innovations. We developed a new paradigm to study cultural evolution in primates in order to better evaluate our closest relatives' cultural capacities. Previous studies using transmission chain experimental paradigms, in which the behavioural output of one individual becomes the target behaviour for the next individual in the chain, show that cultural transmission can lead to the progressive emergence of systematically structured behaviours in humans. Inspired by this work, we combined a pattern reproduction task on touch screens with an iterated learning procedure to develop transmission chains of baboons (Papio papio). Using this procedure, we show that baboons can exhibit three fundamental aspects of human cultural evolution: a progressive increase in performance, the emergence of systematic structure and the presence of lineage specificity. Our results shed new light on human uniqueness: we share with our closest relatives essential capacities to produce human-like cultural evolution.

Claidiere et al Supplementary data
Data used in the analysis of the results presented in the article. The dataset analysed in the article is provided as a comma separated value file (.csv) in which the following columns can be found. TransChain: indicates the number of replications of the experiment, 1 to 6. Generation: indicates the number of generations, 1 to 12. TrialOrder: for each block of 50 trials, gives the order in which each trial was done by the baboon (number 1 was the first trial, 2 the second, etc). TrialName: 1 for all the random trials, 1 to 50 for transmission trials. For transmission trials, the number is fixed for a lineage of grid for each replication of the experiment. TestingPhase: either random or transmission trials. Name: name of the individual. Sex: sex of the individual. AgeMonth: age in month at the time of the experiment. Square1 to 16: color of the square numbered by row from left to right and starting at the top left corner. Touch1 to 4: Number of the square touched by the individual for each trial in order (Touch1 was the first square touched, Touch2 the second one, etc). Takes values 1 to 16. RT1 to 4: cumulative reaction times in milliseconds for the four responses (RT1 is the reaction time for Touch1, RT2 for Touch2, etc).

Claidière, Nicolas; Smith, Kenny; Kirby, Simon; Fagot, Joël (2014). Data from: Cultural evolution of systematically structured behaviour in a non-human primate [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0f1m0