Wired For Culture: Origins Of The Human Social Mind

ALSO BY MARK PAGEL Evolutionary Genomics and Proteomics with Andrew Pomiankowski (Sinauer, 2008) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution (Oxford University Press, 2002) The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology with Paul H. Harvey (Oxford University Press, 1991) WIRED FOR CULTURE Origins of the Human Social Mind Mark Pagel W. W. Norton & Company • NEW YORK LONDON Contents Preface INTRODUCTION: The Gamble PART I • Mind Control, Protection, and Prosperity Prologue CHAPTER 1: The Occupation of the World CHAPTER 2: Ultra-sociality and the Cultural Survival Vehicle CHAPTER 3: The Domestication of Our Talents CHAPTER 4: Religion and Other Cultural “Enhancers” PART II • Cooperation and our Cultural Nature Prologue CHAPTER 5: Reciprocity and the Shadow of the Future CHAPTER 6: Green Beards and the Reputation Marketplace CHAPTER 7: Hostile Forces PART III • The Theatre of the Mind Prologue CHAPTER 8: Human Language—The Voice of Our Genes CHAPTER 9: Deception, Consciousness, and Truth PART IV • The Many and the Few Prologue CHAPTER 10: Termite Mounds and the Exploitation of Our Social Instincts References Bibliography Index Preface I BEGAN THINKING about the ideas that would lead to this book in the early 1990s while in a remote and barren region of Northern Kenya known as the Chalbi Desert. The Chalbi lies north of the town of Marsabit and to the east of Lake Turkana. Marsabit is about a day’s drive north from the town of Isiolo, which sits on the border of a region still called the Northern Frontier District, and that forms roughly half of Kenya. The Chalbi Desert is to some archaeologists the cradle of humanity, the place where the evolving lineage that would eventually lead to modern humans arose. It is a hot and arid region, short of water during the dry season, making it too dry for agriculture, but suited to nomadic pastoralists—people who live by herding animals. In the Chalbi Desert most pastoralists herd sheep, goats, and camels. A pastoralist’s animals are an edible bank account, with varying interest and risk rates. The sheep reproduce quickly but are finicky about what they eat. Goats will eat anything but reproduce less quickly. Camels are the gold bullion of pastoralism: they can survive the harshest conditions but are very slow about making more camels. For the nomadic pastoralists, life is like being an itinerant investment manager. Every day begins with the question of how best to divide one’s resources and efforts among their four-legged investment policies: how many sheep should I have, and when I get that number should I trade them for goats and camels? The Gabbra are a tribe of nomadic pastoralists who live in the Chalbi and descend from Cushitic people who trace their origins to the Horn of Africa. One of these Gabbra, a man called Dido, had seldom been more than about thirty miles from his birthplace, and had spent his life herding his animals and owning what he could fit on the back of a camel when it came time to shift from one area of pasture to another, something these nomads might do several times per year. In addition to his native Gabbra language, Dido could speak English from spending time among missionaries. But Dido also spoke four more languages: Rendille, Samburu, Turkana, and Swahili. I wasn’t surprised about Swahili because it is a trade language spoken all over East Africa. But Rendille, Samburu, and Turkana are the languages of other nomadic pastoralists who also live near the Chalbi Desert and who ma