Origins of human social networks discovered

Humans are sociable creatures because our primate ancestors were forced to band together for protection when they stopped being nocturnal, scientists claim.

Primates were originally solitary creatures which lived alone and foraged by night, but millions of years ago they switched their habits to become active during the day.

Moving around in daylight put them at greater risk of predators, so they quickly formed groups to reduce their chance of being attacked.

Precious theories suggested that primate social groups built up gradually in size over time, but new research published in the Nature journal suggests the origin of our sociability can be traced to the switch to daytime activity.

Oxford University researchers studied groups of living primates as well information on the evolutionary relationships of 217 other primate species to put together the most likely picture of how grouping behaviour developed.

They found that primates inherited their social behaviour from their ancestors, with more closely related species behaving more similarly to one another.

But unlike other primates, humans are flexible enough to live in a range of different social settings, with a great variety of social groupings such as nuclear families, extended families and monogamous and polygamous relationships.

Dr Suzanne Shultz, who led the study, published in the Nature journal, said: "This flexibility in the human lineage has not evolved to anything like this level in other primates. Our findings support previous studies that suggest that more brain power is needed for groups that have a more complicated social life."


/The Telegraph/