Most of the complexity in human society is unnecessary to merely outperform the competition. The exploits that prehistoric humans found were readily available; it’s just that evolution could only find them by inventing a better optimizer, rather than getting there directly.
Crafting spears and other weapons is a simple example. The process to make them could be instinctual, and very little intellect is needed. Similar comments apply to clothing and cooking. If they were evolved behaviours, we might even expect parts of these weapons or tools to grow from the animal itself—you might imagine a dedicated role for one of the members of a group, who grows blades or pieces of armour that others can use as needed.
One could imagine plants that grow symbiotically with some mobile species that farms them and keeps them healthy in ways the plant itself is not able to do (eg. weeding), and in return provides nutrition and shelter, which could include enclosed walling over a sizable area.
One could imagine prey, like rabbits, becoming venomous. When resistance starts to form, they could primarily switch to a different venom for a thousand generations before switching back. In fact, you could imagine such venomous rabbits aggressively trying to drive predators extinct before they had the chance to gain a resistance; a short term cost for long-term prosperity.
The overall point is that evolution does not have the insight to get around optimization barriers. Consider brood parasites, where birds lay eggs in other species’ nests. It is hypothesized that a major reason this behaviour is successful is because of retaliatory behaviour when a parasite is ejected. Clearly these victim species would be better off if they just wiped the parasites off the face of the earth, as long as they survived the one-time increased retaliation, but evolutionary pressure resulted in them evolving complicity.
Most of the complexity in human society is unnecessary to merely outperform the competition. The exploits that prehistoric humans found were readily available; it’s just that evolution could only find them by inventing a better optimizer, rather than getting there directly.
Crafting spears and other weapons is a simple example. The process to make them could be instinctual, and very little intellect is needed. Similar comments apply to clothing and cooking. If they were evolved behaviours, we might even expect parts of these weapons or tools to grow from the animal itself—you might imagine a dedicated role for one of the members of a group, who grows blades or pieces of armour that others can use as needed.
One could imagine plants that grow symbiotically with some mobile species that farms them and keeps them healthy in ways the plant itself is not able to do (eg. weeding), and in return provides nutrition and shelter, which could include enclosed walling over a sizable area.
One could imagine prey, like rabbits, becoming venomous. When resistance starts to form, they could primarily switch to a different venom for a thousand generations before switching back. In fact, you could imagine such venomous rabbits aggressively trying to drive predators extinct before they had the chance to gain a resistance; a short term cost for long-term prosperity.
The overall point is that evolution does not have the insight to get around optimization barriers. Consider brood parasites, where birds lay eggs in other species’ nests. It is hypothesized that a major reason this behaviour is successful is because of retaliatory behaviour when a parasite is ejected. Clearly these victim species would be better off if they just wiped the parasites off the face of the earth, as long as they survived the one-time increased retaliation, but evolutionary pressure resulted in them evolving complicity.