Cultural Evolutionary Perspectives on Creativity and Human Innovation

Cultural traits originate through creative or innovative processes, which might be crucial to understanding how culture evolves and accumulates. However, because of its complexity and apparent subjectivity, creativity has remained largely unexplored as the dynamic underpinning of cultural evolution. Here, we explore the approach to innovation commonly taken in theoretical studies of cultural evolution and discuss its limitations. Drawing insights from cognitive science, psychology, archeology, and even animal behavior, it is possible to generate a formal description of creativity and to incorporate a dynamic theory of creativity into models of cultural evolution. We discuss the implications of such models for our understanding of the archaeological record and the history of hominid culture.

TrendsCreative and innovative processes are of central importance to our understanding of how culture evolves and accumulates.Using the perspectives of cognitive science and other fields to inform a formal definition of creativity, it is possible to include a dynamic theory of creativity in models of cultural evolution.This may help to answer important questions about human cultural evolution and generate deeper insights into the rate of cultural evolution and accumulation over time.