 One consequence of this way of defining things (a consequence which Henrich explicitly recognises) is that the two terms, ‘social learning’ and ‘individual learning’, are not exclusive. In a species like ours it is hardly ever the case that what an individual learns is free from influence by others. Even in extreme cases where we learn by probing our surroundings well away from social company, almost every aspect of the environments we interact with—and hence what we end up learning from those environments—has been affected by other people’s past actions. The structures and contents of our dwellings and workplaces, the constitutions of the domesticated plants and animals we interact with, the cultivated and engineered environments we live in, all have been affected by the activities of our predecessors.