Culture & society
The self-domestication of humans
11 min
One theory holds that our ancestors succeeded not by being the strongest or smartest, but the friendliest — selecting for cooperation and tolerance. Explore self-domestication and how sociability became humanity's superpower.
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Show notes
Human brow ridges shrunk forty percent over eighty thousand years as we selected for tameness.
Serotonin acts as a biological brake on aggression while simultaneously reshaping the human skull structure.
Shell beads found hundreds of miles inland prove early humans built trade networks based on stranger trust.
Neanderthals lacked the large social footprints of modern humans and relied on localized raw materials.
Oxytocin fuels both intense group bonding and the organized cruelty used against perceived outsiders.
Modern human skulls evolved from a football shape to a globular balloon-like structure through self-domestication.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Domestication Syndrome3 min
- 3The Neurochemical Engine of Cooperation3 min
- 4Survival of the Friendliest2 min
- 5The Dark Side of the Hug Hormone2 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Humans Evolved to Be Friendly | Scientific American
- Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality
- Hypotheses for the Evolution of Reduced Reactive Aggression in the Context of Human Self-Domestication
- Evaluating the self‐domestication hypothesis of human evolution
- Human Social Evolution: Self-Domestication or Self-Control?
- Self-domestication
- How Humans Domesticated Themselves
- Richard Wrangham: Did Homo Sapiens Self-Domesticate?
- Survival of the Friendliest: Homo Sapiens Evolved Via Selection for Prosociality
- CARTA: Domestication and Human Evolution - Richard Wrangham: Did Homo sapiens Self-Domesticate?
- Survival of the Friendliest:Homo sapiensEvolved via Selection for Pros...
- Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality
- Hypotheses for the Evolution of Reduced Reactive Aggression in the Context of Human Self-Domestication
- Globularization and Domestication | Topoi | Springer Nature Link
- Dosage analysis of the 7q11.23 Williams region identifies BAZ1B as a major human gene patterning the modern human face and underlying self-domestication | Science Advances
- Neural crest cell genes and the domestication syndrome: A comparative analysis of selection | PLOS One
- https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037d-4218-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content
- Evidence for the involvement of central serotonin in mechanism of domestication of silver foxes. - PDF Download Free
- The “Domestication Syndrome” in Mammals: A Unified Explanation ...
- Frontiers | Hypotheses for the Evolution of Reduced Reactive Aggression in the Context of Human Self-Domestication
- Craniofacial Feminization, Social Tolerance, and the Origins of Behavioral Modernity
- Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality
- Molecules, Mechanisms, and Disorders of Self-Domestication: Keys for Understanding Emotional and Social Communication from an Evolutionary Perspective - PMC
- Physiological Gracility of Anatomically Modern Humans: Human Self-Domestication or Gene Tic)-Epigene (Tic)-Culture Co-Evolution?
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