The Biology of Traditions : Models and Evidence

Biology of Traditions investigates socially maintained behavioural traditions in non-human animals from primates and dolphins to birds. Exploring theoretical models of traditions, it will make this area accessible to researchers and students in the fields of biology, anthropology and psychology.

Socially maintained behavioural traditions in non-human species hold great interest for biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. This book treats traditions in non-human species as biological phenomena that are amenable to the comparative methods of inquiry used in contemporary biology. Chapters in the first section define behavioural traditions, and indicate how they can arise in non-human species, how widespread they may be, how they may be recognized and how we can study them. The second part summarizes cutting-edge research programmes seeking to identify traditions in diverse taxa in contributions from leading researchers in this area. The book ends with a comparison and evaluation of the alternative theoretical formulations and their applications presented in the book, and lays out recommendations for future research building on the most promising evidence and lines of thinking. The Biology of Traditions will be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of anthropology, biology and psychology.