What Can Sharks, Bees and Humans Teach Us About Urban Development?

Torrey Pines

Sharks, Bees and Humans forage and explore in many of the same ways.  Researchers at University of Arizona studied the foraging and exploring patterns of a number of creatures in their habitats (1). In particular, they looked at the Hadza people of Tanzania who still forage and hunt in the same way that our ancestors did. To their amazement, they found similar patterns of activities among broad species.

The pattern is known as the Levy walk and is based on mathematical principles. The same patterns exist when foraging for food or walking around an amusement park (2). It entails short movements around a particular area and then longer movements into newer areas.

Co-author and anthropologist Brian Woods from Yale states, “Detecting this pattern among the Hadza, as has been found in several other species, tells us that such patterns are likely the result of general foraging strategies that many species adopt, across a wide variety of contexts” (3).  They argue that understanding how these patterns work may eventually influence urban development.

It is possible that this process is based on our evolutionary development to create net effects in an area. The short movements help us find the things we need for survival. Once an area is canvassed, we then move to change the environment and search again in a new area. At present, the researchers desire to conduct more studies to determine the actual reasons for and how these patterns may have influenced the societal development (4).

Putting this within an urban context, we may find that having local pockets of retail to serve basic needs of local residents with larger commercial areas could have some benefit. People will forage their neighborhoods and walk to the local grocery store but will naturally drive to shop at larger retailers or commercial districts. Getting people out of their houses and walking around can have a large impact on social cohesion and health. 

News Release

Communication in Ancient African Societies Created Innovation

It is hard to imagine that climate change and innovation have something to do with each other.  However, new research into archaeological innovation and climate change indicates that there are important similarities in history between changes in the environment, cultural interaction, and an explosion in societal innovation.  Africa was once a hot bed of human adaptation and change and sets a historical example that modern innovators may find useful.

Africa around 60,000 to 80,000 years ago began to experience higher environmental changes forcing humans to adapt their practices. Martin Ziegler, an earth scientist from Cardiff University in Wales, believes that early humans adapted when parts of Sub-Sahara Africa experienced conditions that were more hospitable for humans.  

As the global temperature shifted cooler, based upon ocean activity, the world found that some areas were more lush while others more dry. In the study environmental activity was compared against archeological findings to determine changes in innovative behavior. Habitable environmental changes produced higher levels of innovation during specific beneficial climatic adjustments.  

As populations became denser they interbreed and changed their cultural perceptions. In Africa, people began to interact more closely with other tribes and learn from each other. It is through this population explosion and interaction that new ways of viewing the world were developed that eventually transformed culture.

The researchers found better jewelry, tools, hunting techniques, and artistic designs associated with this population explosion. Studies have found that once the innovations took place they disappeared a short time later. The scientists further believe that climate may have something to do with this innovation and then stagnation of human development.

As the environment became more habitable birth rates had a corresponding increase. As tribal members swelled their ranks, they were forced to interact with each other in new trading partnerships. There simply was less land mass separating groups. Yet once the climate and habitat changed and the populations separated innovation declined with it.

Previous research on innovation helps shed light on the concept that increased interactivity of human thoughts creates new ways of thinking about such issues. Innovation in society is based upon a small subset of society that develops new products and a larger group of followers that adopt such innovations once they have been developed.

Once these adaptations were integrated into a tribal society they are spread to other tribes through interaction and trading. In essence, the same activity of connecting useful information that occurs in our heads also occurs within the physical environment when people use these thoughts to combine old tools into new tools. Each innovation is a thought about how to use products in new ways. The more we associate and connect them the more innovative we become.

With climate change becoming more important to people today and the Internet spreading information at lightning speed those societies that can adapt new technologies fastest are likely to reap the most awards from innovation. The same process of information sharing, trade, and interaction is important today in the virtual world as it was so many years ago in Sub-Sahara Africa. Many of the same processes are still at play even if the modality is different.

You may want to read the abstract or full report in Nature Communications:

The development of modernity in early human populations has been linked to pulsed phases of technological and behavioural innovation within the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. However, the trigger for these intermittent pulses of technological innovation is an enigma. Here we show that, contrary to some previous studies, the occurrence of innovation was tightly linked to abrupt climate change. Major innovational pulses occurred at times when South African climate changed rapidly towards more humid conditions, while northern sub-Saharan Africa experienced widespread droughts, as the Northern Hemisphere entered phases of extreme cooling. These millennial-scale teleconnections resulted from the bipolar seesaw behaviour of the Atlantic Ocean related to changes in the ocean circulation. These conditions led to humid pulses in South Africa and potentially to the creation of favourable environmental conditions. This strongly implies that innovational pulses of early modern human behaviour were climatically influenced and linked to the adoption of refugia.

Ziegler, et. al. (2013). Development of middle stone age innovation linked to rapid climate change. Nature Communications, 4 (1905). Retrieved May 21, 2013 from http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n5/full/ncomms2897.html

Further Reading: 

Design Trend

Planet Earth

Science

Cardiff

Book Review: Wired for Culture by Mark Pagel

Wired for Culture by Mark Pagel moves deeply into the undiscovered nature of human biology and how this influences societal development. Rooted in our biology is the deep desire for all human beings to work within social groups. This biology manifests itself into altruistic actions that further the survival needs of that group. Without the use of social mirroring and individuals showing their societal worth through altruistic actions society would eventually dissipate into chaos. 

To him culture is a domestication tool that helps individuals find a place that furthers their self-attainment and the overall development of society. Through this specialization of effort the entire economic chain is developed that contributes to each other by providing specific products and services that benefits the group of most. This benefit comes to individuals in the form of wages and financial security. It keeps the chain bound together.

Religion is seen as a cultural enhancer that helps to foster togetherness among certain ethnic groups. Such beliefs are pushed in order to ensure that members adhere to societal standards defined by that group. Those who violate religious norms are often chastised as though they have violated a group norm. This reason exists because for many people religion is a definition of oneself and their identity that moves across multiple planes of understanding the world. 

Language is also biological in nature, but the type of language people use is part of group identity and culture. It enhances this societal definition with certain groups using certain types of language and phrases more than others phrases. Where there is difference in language use there is also the potential for group differences based upon perceptions of both group identity and world perception the language defines.

The book further discusses the concept of human social structure revolving around the natural order of creatures in nature. “That large groups of humans can be led by a small number of elite for the same reasons as termites, ants, bees and wasps. “ Those on top of the social structure are seen as more important genetically as well as more worthy to lead a group of people. Yet this is only a perception and is defined by group values that may or may not represent the reality.

The book sheds light on the structure of society and how the biological nature of humans have come to form people, nations, and societal order. Most people are not aware they are in a network of other people and fit within this societal order in some defined way. They follow the rules because to step outside of those rules means to incur the wrath of those who find their value in that particular order.  This is one of the reasons why change can be so stressful to a society as it adjusts the patterns and beliefs to create new understandings of the world.

I found the book to be thought provoking in the sense that it helps to come to the conclusion that those things that define us as a nation are really based within our cultural perceptions. There are some who will view themselves as part of a different group based upon ethnicity even within the larger societal structure as defined by a nation. People must change the way they view others within society in order to fully incorporate them into the societal network. The change of the mind can take many years to complete as people slowly adjust the perception of self and others into a more cohesive framework.

Pagel, M. (2012). Wired for Culture: The origins of the Human Social Mind. NY; W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN: 978-0-393-34420-2

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