ABSTRACT
Most mammals, and virtually all primates, are highly social beings. Mammalian and primate infants typically begin their lives clinging to their mothers and nursing, and they spend their next few months, or even years, still in close proximity to her. As adults, most mammals and primates live in close-knit social groups in which members individually recognize one another and form various types of social relationships (Tomasello … Call, 1997). Since they are primates, human beings follow this same pattern, of course, but they also have some unique forms of sociality that may be characterized as “ultra-social” (Boyd & Richerson, 1996) or, in more common parlance, cultural (Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner, 1993).
