Index

• 2001: A Space Odyssey, 125

 

• Acerbi, Alberto, 102

• Ache, 10
• Acheulean hand ax, 40–42
• Ackroyd, Peter, 16
• Ælfheah, 17
• Aiello, Leslie, 2, 3
• Albright, Jonathan, 119
• Alexa, 124
• Anglo-Saxons, 16–17, 46
• Apicella, Coren, 10
• Aral, Sinan, 91
• Arthur, Brian. See El Farol problem
• Artificial intelligence
• Axelrod, Robert, 6

• Bad Teacher, 34
• Bantu, 5
  • expansion, 55–60
• Bayes, Thomas, 52
• Bayesian inference, 51–53, 61, 65, 68
• Beauty and the Beast, 47
• Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in C minor, 69
• Bering land bridge, 44
• Bollen, Johan, 95
• Boyd, Robert, 27
• Bowles, Samuel, 4
• Brain size, 3, 42. See also Social brain
• Brexit, 93–94
• Broesch, James, 83
• Burial practices, 21, 23, 62, 75

• Campbell, Joseph, 19
• Çatalhöyük (Turkey), 17, 18
• “Celtic Prince
• Chiasson, Daniel, 120
• Chiefdom, 64
• Childbirth, 2
• Chimpanzees, 91
  • and dominance hierarchy, 82
  • working memory of, 116
• Chinese whispers, 28, 36
• Christakis, Nicholas, 79, 90
• Christmas cards, 11. See also Dunbar, Robin
• Cities, 106
  • fertility rates and, 106
  • scaling laws and, 107
• Cladistics, 45. See also Evolutionary trees; Language, trees
• Clinton, Hillary, 94, 97, 102
• Clovis points, 44
• Collective behavior, 68–69, 99–102
• Columbus, Christopher, 71
• Connected, 90. See also Christakis, Nicholas; Fowler, James
• Consumer Electronics Show, 126
• Cooperation, 2, 9, 10, 32–33
• Copying, 4, 6
• Couzin, Ian, 8, 117
• Cownden, Daniel, 6
• CRISPR, 121
• Cristianini, Nello, 68, 100
• Cultural animal, xv
• Cultural attractors, 29–30, 32
• Cultural evolution, xvi, 36, 40, 109, 118
• Cultural intelligence, 9
• Cultural transmission, xvi, 24, 37, 68. See also Cultural evolution
  • and population size, 105–109
• Culture, 9
• Currie, Thomas, 61, 63

• Dairy products, 20
• Darwin, Charles, 108
• Data faking, 112–113
• Dawkins, Richard, xiv
• DeepMind, 123. See also Google
• Dennett, Daniel, xiv
• de Sola, Derek, 112
• Directional agreement, 117
• Discount machine, 6
• Disney, Walt, 126
• DNA, 109
• Domesday Book, 16
• Dominance hierarchy. See Chimpanzees
• Dow Jones Industrial Average, 95, 98. See also High-frequency traders
• Drudge Report, 86
• Dunbar, Robin, 3

• Eagleman, David, 102
• El Farol problem, 98
• Emulation, 43. See also Imitation; Wilkins, Jayne
• Enron, 86, 88. See also Lay, Kenneth; Skilling, Jeffrey
• Esvelt, Kevin, 121
• Ethnographic Atlas, 57, 59, 61. See also Murdock, George P.
• Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 18–19
• Evolutionary trees, 45–50. See also Language, trees

• Facebook, xiii, 3, 36, 37, 85, 86
• Fake news, 86, 113, 119
• Female genital mutilation, 74
• Fertility rates, decline in, 74, 106–107 (see also Cities)
• Feuding, 22–24
  • in Albania, 22, 24
  • in Neolithic Europe, 22–23
• Flint blades, 43
• Flowers, Michael, 95
• Folktales, 19, 26, 30, 46–48
  • treelike structure of, 47–48
• Fortunato, Laura, 60
• Fowler, James, 90
• Friedman, Thomas, 116, 120
• Future Shock, 109, 116

• Gibson, Mhairi, 60
• Gilligan’s Island, 104–106, 113
• GitHub, 120
• Goodall, Jane, 82
• Google, 53, 95, 101–102, 118, 122
• Google Scholar, 119
• Google Trends, 95, 96
• Graça da Silva, Sara, 47
• Granger causation, 96
• Greed, 30
• Gurmu, Eshetu, 60

• Hadrian’s Wall, 19
• Hadza, 10, 82
• Harappa (Pakistan), 20
• Henrich, Joseph, 8, 83, 105
• Henry IV, 12
• High-frequency traders, and stock market decline, 98–99
• Hildalgo, César, 49, 110
• Hill, Kim, 10
• Hill, Russell, 11
• Hillbilly Elegy. See Vance, J. D.
• H-index, 112
• Hobaiter, Catherine, 91
• Holden, Clare, 60. See also Bantu, expansion; Language, trees
• Homo erectus, 41
• Homophily, 90–92
• Horizons, xvi, 68–69, 73. See also Traditions
• Horst, Heather, 5–6
• Hrdy, Sarah, 4–5
• Hurricane Katrina, 70

• #IceBucketChallenge, 77
• Imitation, 43
• Industrial Revolution, 73
• Information, xvi, 6, 7, 8, 18, 32, 55, 83, 86, 88
  • creation of, 52, 109–113 (see also Research papers)
  • storage of, 108–109, 110
• Instagram, 3–4, 116
• Internet, 8, 40, 84
• iPhone, 40, 41
• Iterated learning, 53–54. See also Lewandowsky, Stephan

• Jobs, Steve, 126
• Ju/’hoansi, 10, 13, 14, 57

• Kalahari Desert, 10, 13
• Kathu Pan (South Africa), 43. See also Wilkins, Jayne
• Kermit the Frog, 85
• Kin selection, 33. See also Cooperation
• Kin terms, 13
• Kontakte, 87
• !Kung Bushmen. See Ju/’hoansi

• Laland, Kevin, 6
• Lampos, Vasileios, 102
• Landholding, systems of, 16
• Language, 27
  • structure of, 30
  • trees, 46, 58, 63
• Lapita people, 61–62
• Lawly Wurm, 96
• Lay, Kenneth, 86–87, 88
• Le, Quoc, 53
• Lewandowsky, Stephan, 63–64
• Lillicrap, Timothy, 6
• Linearbandkeramik, 18
• Little Red Riding Hood, 19, 30, 37, 47
• Lord of the Flies, 104

• Mace, Ruth, 60. See also Bantu, expansion; Language, trees
• Makse, Hernán, 86, 87
• Marriage, rates of decline in
• Marshall, Lorna, 13
• McDonald’s, 35
• Mechanical Turk, 121
• Memes, xiv
• Mesoudi, Alex, 7, 8
• Middle Stone Age, 44
• Miller, Daniel, 5–6
• MIT Media Lab. See Hidalgo, César
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 15–16
• Moore, Gordon, 110, 114
• Moore, Michael, 94
• Moore’s law. See Moore, Gordon
• Morone, Flaviano, 86, 87
• Munros, 69
• Muppets, 85
• Murdock, George P., 57–58
• Murphy, Walter, 69

• Naming, 12, 24, 118–119
• Neocortex, 3
• Neolithic, 18–22, 75
• Nettle, Daniel, 76
• Networks, 84, 87, 121. See also Social networks
• Neuroscience, 2
• Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), 27
• Normans, 16
• Nuer, 18–19

• Odyssey, 104

• Pentland, Alex, 12
• Perry, Katy, 85
• Pinker, Steven, 30
• Pollet, Thomas, 76
• Polynesia, ancient political systems of, 61, 63
• Population bottleneck, 37, 106
• Prediction, 93–99
• Presley, Elvis, 49, 125
• Prestige bias, 32
• Producers, 7. See also Scroungers

• Rajasthan (India), 26
• Random drift, 113, 119
• Red Queen effect, 112, 113
• Religion, and generosity, 33–34
• Research papers, growth in
• Richard II, 12
• Richerson, Peter, 27
• Rockefeller, John D., 77
• Ruck, Damian, 73–74, 78
• Rumpelstiltskin, 47

• Sarao, Navinder Singh, 99. See also High-frequency traders
• Schöneck-Kilianstädten (Germany), 23, 75
• Schroeder, Joseph, 29
• Scroungers, 7, 8
• Search algorithms, 118
• Sekara, Vedran, 92
• Selfish Gene, The, xiv
• Shroud of Turin, 1
• Silk, Joan, 82
• Silver, Nate, 94
• Skilling, Jeffrey, 86–87, 88
• Slacktivism, 77, 90
• Slosberg, Jason, 100
• Snapchat, 86
• Snow White, 26, 30
• Social brain, 3, 5, 32
• Social influence, 90. See also Homophily
• Social learning, 4, 6
• Social networks, 91
  • dispersion of, 88
  • embeddedness of, 87
  • evolution of, 85
  • and trade, 82–83
• Solé, Ricard, 48
• Stand by Me, 35
• Stapel, Diederick. See Data faking
• Sugar, 71
  • and obesity, 72–73
  • toxicity of, 72

• Talheim (Germany), 23
• Talhelm, Thomas, 8
• Tasmania, 105–106
• Teaching, 27
• Tehrani, Jamshid, 47
• Thera, 83
• Through the Looking Glass, 112
• Traditional knowledge, xvi. See also Traditions
• Traditions, xvi, 68–69
  • dietary, 70–73 (see also Sugar)
• Transmission chains, 28, 53
• Trump, Donald, 94, 102
• Twitter, 68, 85, 86, 87, 95, 99, 113. See also Collective behavior
• Tybrind Vig (Denmark), 31

• Valverde, Sergei, 48
• Vance, J. D., 73
• Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer, 102
• Vikings, 46
• Vindolanda, England, 19
• Vinyals, Oriyol, 53
• Vix, France, 21

• Wallace, Alfred, 108
• Watts, Duncan, 89
• Watts, Joseph, 65
• Weekend at Bernie’s, 51
• WEIRD societies, 8. See also Henrich, Joseph
• Wheeler, Peter, 2
• Wikipedia, 85
• Wilkins, Jayne, 43–44
• William the Conqueror, 16
• Willy the Orca, 115, 127
• Wisdom of individuals, 54. See also Lewandowsky, Stephan
• Wrangham, Richard, 3

• Yahoo!, 95