years ago, another tool: writing. Language, both oral and written, allowed for gossip, a vector for social information. Research carried out by Ralf Sommerfeld of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and his colleagues demonstrated that in cooperation games that allowed players to gossip about o

4 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 14 Sommerfeld, R.D., Krambeck, H.J. & Milinski, M. 2007 Gossip as an alternative for direct observation in games of indirect reciprocity Proc. Natl. Acad. ScL U.S