A New Theory of Evolution is Supported by the Teaching Patterns of Human Ancestors

How do we tell which events in evolution are the most important? Cognitive Archaeologists have identified seven stages in the methods used by our ancestors to teach, mostly, how to make and use tools. What they all have in common was that every teaching method was eventually found to be inadequate to pass on some particular new innovation, and that a new teaching method was needed. The purpose of this chapter is to find out whether these events follow an accelerating pattern. The results reveal that growth of complexity in evolution is deterministic. And that evolution is not a single process but a set of processes that arise one at a time. This is true of the two biological evolution processes, the seven cultural evolution processes and possibly three technology processes. The common factor is the transfer of information to the next generation. A hypothesis is presented that makes use of Chaos Theory Universality to explain how multiple levels of evolution can be integrated into one theory. The results challenge the established framework of evolutionary theory. The dates of our next evolutionary steps are predicted by the theory. What the steps will be is not predicted. Hoggard also looks at the hypothesis from a Big History point of view to examine its relevance to efforts to standardize periodization. The periodization presented is very closely tied to the hypothesis and its success or otherwise. In many ways it is unsuitable for attempts to find a common framework for periodization. For example, it has (theoretically) an infinite number of events as evolution accelerates. Also, five of the first ten events are about tools and language, which is unusual in Big History literature.