Publication details

On the origin of collective ritual

Authors

KUNDT Radek LANG Martin

Year of publication 2022
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description Treating collective ritual as a complex signaling system facilitating mutualistic cooperation, we propose an evolutionary model of its origin in the hominin lineage. For our model, we first synthesize the literature dealing with hunter-gatherer ethnography and hominin archaeology and identify similarity signals, coalitionary signals, and signals of commitment to collective action as the main building blocks of the signaling system. As a next step, we turn to primatology and paleoanthropology to investigate these signals in non-human primates and past hominins. Adding the proximate level to our analysis, we pinpoint distinctive neurocognitive mechanisms scaffolding the three types of ritual signals and track down the mechanisms` presence. Finally, we connect this evidence with the prevalent socio-ecological selective pressures for cooperative communication and suggest that by the arrival of H. Sapiens collective ritual already constituted crucial adaptation overcoming collective action problems.
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