In the songs of humpback whales, the bubble feeding of others, in the nurturing behavior of adult killer whales teaching their young innovative ways of removing a seal from an ice floe, exist wonderful examples of the transmission of information among cetaceans. The information, and its transmission, is shaped by the incredibly unique environmentthat in which a 150 ton blue whale can move with utter grace, and in which the vertical expanse is as vast a range as the horizontal. Does this blend of environment, adaptation, and sociality yield an Ocean Culture of its own? Ocean Culture navigates deftly an exploration of the culture of the whales and dolphins. What is it? Does it even exist? If it does, why? What might it mean? Ocean Culture is also about our evolving understanding of non-human societies, and through them what it means to be human, carried by rafts of insights hard won from the oceans by scientists all over the world.
Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Rendell, captain a remarkable cultural and evolutionary voyage in the pages of this work drawing on their own research, and as well on a literature as vast as the ocean, from fields of evolution, behavior, ecology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience."