Revision summary
Bipedalism and a large, slow-growing brain are biological platforms. Stone tools, fire, and sharing are cultural forces. Washburn treated tools as a cause of further anatomy. Hrdy’s alloparents help explain childhood. Lactase persistence shows the loop continuing.
Model answer
Introduction
Human evolution is a two-way process. Somatic change opened new habits; tools, fire, and teaching then selected further biology.
Body
Biological factors
- Bipedalism in Australopithecus, with Laetoli footprints, freed the hands and changed the birth canal.
- Brain enlargement, reduced canines, and a longer childhood mark Homo habilis and Homo erectus.
- Sweat cooling, endurance walking, and dietary shifts, including Wrangham’s cooking hypothesis, lowered gut cost.
- Life history: helpless infants need carers, which Hrdy ties to cooperative breeding.
Cultural factors
- Oldowan and Acheulian tools at Olduvai and Attirampakkam extend diet and range.
- Fire, shelter, clothing, and later language store knowledge outside the body.
- Food sharing and division of labour make a social niche. Tomasello calls the result cumulative culture.
- Washburn argued tools selected the human hand, not only the reverse.
Feedback still visible
- Lactase persistence and high-altitude alleles show gene–culture coevolution after the Pleistocene.
- Neither biology nor culture is a residual. The human niche is both.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD BIO[Bipedal brain childhood] --> CUL[Tools fire language] CUL --> SEL[Selection on body] SEL --> BIO
Conclusion
Biological factors are bipedalism, brain, and delayed growth. Cultural factors are tools, fire, sharing, and teaching. Evolution of humans is their feedback, not a choice of one side.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Explain the role of heredity and environment in the formation of races.
Next question in the 2016 paper (Q6). View answer →
-
Which came first, brain or tools?
Bipedalism is early. Tools and brain then ratchet. There is no single first.
-
Is culture only Homo sapiens?
No. Erectus already carried Acheulian extra-somatic adaptation.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2024 · Q8(c) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
Critically discuss the synergistic effect of biological and cultural factors in human evolution. -
2023 · Q3(a) · Anthropology GS 1 · 20 marks
What is hominization process? Discuss the major trends in human evolution with the help of suitable examples and illustrations. -
2015 · Q2(a) · Anthropology GS 1 · 15 marks
Elucidate the biological and cultural factors in Human Evolution
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Differences between Social Anthropology and Sociology.
The Nature of Society
Social anthropology grew from intensive fieldwork in small-scale societies. Sociology grew from industrial class, state, and survey. Malinowski versus Durkheim is the textbook origin split. Srinivas and Béteille show the Indian overlap. The wall is departmental, not a law of nature.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Cultural Relativism
The Nature of Culture
Relativism asks that custom be read in its own history. Boas used it against unilinear racial stages. Herskovits and Benedict spread it as method and public teaching. It is a brake on ethnocentrism, not a moral blank cheque. Rights debates mark its political edge.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Anthropology GS 1 · 10 marks
Lineage and Clan
Kinship
Lineage members can show genealogical links to an ancestor. Clan members share a putative ancestor and often a totem. Lineages nest inside clans in many segmentary systems. Nuer feud and fusion made the distinction famous. Both groups are commonly exogamous.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.