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Culture and hyperculture: Why can't a cetacean be more like a (hu)man?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2001

Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. B3H3J, CanadaJ.h.barkow@dal.ca www.is.dal.ca/~barkow/home.html
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Abstract

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Human hyperculture appears to have been produced by the amplification of the kind of normal culture shared by cetaceans and other animals and presumably by our ancestors. Is there any possibility that cetaceans could be subject to these amplifying processes, which may include: sexual selection; within-group moral behavior; culling of low- cultural-capacity individuals through predation or self-predation; and reciprocal positive feedback between culture and the capacity for culture.

Type
Brief Report
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press