| Concept/Content |
social context of cooperative behavior / hunter-gathering tribe |
| Information caption |
Early humans (around 100,000 years ago) were able to level their dominance hierarchies (still found today among chimpanzees). Communication skills facilitated the coordination of large coalitions that could effectively check the authority of dominant individuals. Weapons, once developed for hunting, likely contributed further to equalizing power. Egalitarianism emerged, and with it, moral norms that could shape further biological evolution. Human morality seems to reflect how the species is organized socially (Boehm 1999). |
| Inquiry caption |
[...continued]
Early humans (around 100,000 years ago) seemed able to level dominance hierarchies (still found today among chimpanzees). Communication skills facilitated the coordination of large coalitions that could effectively check the authority of dominant individuals. Weapons, once developed for hunting, likely contributed further to equalizing power. Egalitarianism emerged and, with it, moral norms (Boehm 1999). What factors (cognitive, social, technological, other) seem most significant in shaping the evolution of early human morality? What might have initiated those changes?
[Advanced:] In what ways does the evolution of human morality seem "inevitable," in what ways contingent on certain historical events?
Target Concept: Variations in social and cognitive contexts shape helping and cooperative behavior. |
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| Credit |
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| SIZE in pixels [file size] |
461x295 |
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