ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the common ground in the cultural behavior of modern humans and other great apes, notably chimpanzees and orang-utans and summarizes the record of behavior in early hominins. It examines hominin cultural behavior, expressed in the archaeological record, differed from "culture" in the modern human sense evident beginning in the late Pleistocene, and may have differed from that apparent in living apes. The chapter explores the adaptive conditions under which modern human cultural behavior emerged. It outlines how the cultural behavior characteristic of modern humans emerged from a paleocultural system of earlier humans. If the idea of culture will ever again prove useful in understanding human sociality and behavioral evolution, it will be essential for scholars in many fields to grasp the diverse uses of the culture concept. Evidence of geographic traditions in orangutans might further indicate that culture is a shared feature of all great ape species and humans.
