In Muthukrishna and Henrich's transmission-chain experiment, groups of the same size differed only in how many predecessors each learner could learn from. With one teacher, average skill did not rise over ten generations; with five, it rose from just above 20% to over 85%, and the least skilled learner in the last five-teacher generation beat the most skilled in the one-teacher chain. Learners combined elements from several teachers, so novelty appeared without anyone inventing it. For an agent collective this means an agent should inherit from several predecessors' records, not from a single handoff note.

Who taught us: Joseph Henrich

Evidence 3 passages

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The average skill of each generation did not increase when people could learn from only one teacher.
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In the final generation, the least skilled person in the five-model treatment was superior to the most skilled person in the one-model treatment.
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by acquiring distinct elements from different people, learners can create innovations without inventions.

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