Descent with modification and the archaeological record

Abstract

Recent years have seen major advances in our understanding of the way in which cultural transmission takes place and the factors that affect it. The theoretical foundations of those advances have been built by postulating the existence of a variety of different processes and deriving their consequences mathematically or by simulation. The operation of these processes in the real world can be studied through experiment and naturalistic observation. In contrast, archaeologists have an 'inverse problem'. For them the object of study is the residues of different behaviours represented by the archaeological record and the problem is to infer the microscale processes that produced them, a vital task for cultural evolution since this is the only direct record of past cultural patterns. The situation is analogous to that faced by population geneticists scanning large number of genes and looking for evidence of selection as opposed to drift, but more complicated for many reasons, not least the enormous variety of different forces that affect cultural transmission. This paper reviews the progress that has been made in inferring processes from patterns and the role of demography in those processes, together with the problems that have arisen.

Culture evolves

“…Some of the principles revealed here echo biology, such as the relationships between diversity (both biological and cultural) and such basic factors as latitude, temperature and rainfall [32]. Such analyses have offered compelling explanations for the apparently sporadic growth and fading of early cultural developments in Africa in the period up to about 50 Ka, after which more continuity is observed [26,31,32,73].…”

“…As Shennan [31] (following [18]) notes, cultural change can occur through 'cultural selection' (for example, people select the most efficient axes) and/or 'natural selection' in the conventional sense (the reproductive success of the best axe makers promotes the evolution of those axes). In addition, the forms that culture evolves into provide an array of selection pressures on the biological sphere, instances of which are the subject of diverse papers here including van Schaik & Burkart [7] and those of part 4.…”

“…Henrich & Broesch [37] provide a complementary analysis of cultural adaptation, building on the extensive foundations provided by the modelling literature discussed by Shennan [31], to which Henrich has made extensive contributions (e.g. [78]).…”

“…In their different ways these provide an overarching context for the papers that follow, as well as linking to the earlier sections. Shennan [31] provides a concise overview of key principles in biologically inspired approaches to cultural evolution, summarizing fundamental theoretical foundations [18,19] and going on to illustrate the recent growth in empirical work that engages with cultural evolutionary theory. As Shennan shows, the scope of this body of work now ranges from Acheulian artefacts to more recent examples that include such diverse cases as hunter-gatherer projectile points, pottery designs, iron-smelting and baby names.…”

“…The application of the meme concept in serious research on culture has remained relatively minimal and much debated [44]. Here, however, Shennan [31] argues that the 'meme's eye view' offers a significant theoretical perspective that the field ought to embrace. Shennan also builds on the now extensive body of cultural evolution theory built in the last 30 years, largely stimulated through the foundational work of CavalliSforza & Feldman [18] and Boyd & Richerson [19,45].…”