Coexistence of individual and social learners during range expansion

Individual learning and social learning are two primary abilities supporting cultural evolution. Conditions for their evolution have mostly been studied by investigating gene frequency dynamics, which essentially implies constant population size. Predictions from such “static” models may only be of partial relevance to the evolution of advanced individual learning in modern humans, because modern humans have experienced rapid population growth and range expansion during “out-of-Africa.” Here we model the spatial population dynamics of individual and social learners by a reaction–diffusion system. One feature of our model is the inclusion of the possibility that social learners may fail to find an exemplar to copy in regions where the population density is low. Due to this attenuation effect, the invasion speed of social learners is diminished, and various kinds of invasion dynamics are observed. Our primary findings are: (1) individual learners can persist indefinitely when invading environmentally homogeneous infinite space; (2) the occurrence of individual learners at the front may inhibit the spread of social learners. These results suggest that “out-of-Africa” may have driven the evolution of advanced individual learning ability in modern humans.