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Signaling in Style: On Cooperation, Identity and the Origins of Visual Art

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Understanding Cultural Traits

Abstract

This paper argues that visual art coevolved with typically human ways of social organization and cooperation strategies. My argument, in brief, is that Late Pleistocene human groups became organised in band societies that established networks of indirect reciprocal cooperation, which favoured cultural strategies of individual recognition such as social markers, e.g. styles of personal ornamentation. These early forms of visual art, by conveying information about social identity, became important in recalling and assessing individual interactions in cooperative networks. I also argue that as a cultural strategy, visual art could have been adaptive by reducing risk of aggression and increasing resource acquisition through exchange. As other evolved cultural traits, like tool-making and cooking, visual art too could have had an important impact on shaping modern human cognition and behaviour.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Connection: Chaps. 20 and 21 address in similar evolutionary ‘whys and hows’ of human traits that determine the capacity for cultural variation: aesthetic preferences and literature.

  2. 2.

    Connection: Sect. 10.3 offers a philosophical analysis of style – for example artistic or writing style – as not planned, repeated out of control, and recognized in hindsight and on a large observation scale.

  3. 3.

    Connection: This Chapter often recalls the crucial role played by archaeology. Please, refer to Chap. 15 for a theoretical introduction to the role of archeology in identifying cultures and cultural traits.

  4. 4.

    Connection: The hypothesis of visual art as a signal to obtain cooperation in complex societies is a good example of applying Evolutionary Game Theory (Sect. 12.3) and its models of evolution of cooperative behaviors.

  5. 5.

    For a review of the different uses of ‘style’ in archaeology, see: M. Conkey (1990, 2006).

  6. 6.

    Connection: A discussion of values as cultural traits is found in Sect. 14.3 and Chap. 12.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors, E. Serrelli and F. Panebianco, for inviting me to contribute to this volume, and to two anonymous referees for their comments. This paper was completed within the project ‘Implementing the Extended Synthesis into the Sociocultural Domain’, directed by Nathalie Gontier and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, whom I thank for their support.

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  1. Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

    Larissa Mendoza Straffon

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  1. Paris School of Economics, Paris, France

    Fabrizio Panebianco

  2. CISEPS-CenterforInterdisciplinaryStudies, University of Milano - Bicocca, Milano, Italy

    Emanuele Serrelli

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Mendoza Straffon, L. (2016). Signaling in Style: On Cooperation, Identity and the Origins of Visual Art. In: Panebianco, F., Serrelli, E. (eds) Understanding Cultural Traits. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24349-8_19

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