Optimizing Engines: Rational Choice in the Neolithic?

Sterelny, Kim

doi:10.1086/681602

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…That said, we do have reservations about the particular class of models with which Shennan chooses to illustrate his points. We agree of course that investment in farming-and especially longer-term invest-ment, in clearing stones and weeds, rotating crops and improving soils-is rational only when those investing can reasonably expect to harvest the benefits of their investments (see also Sterelny 2015). We agree that some form of recognized property right is the most likely basis of that security.…”

Section: Shennanmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…In his commentary, Stephen Shennan mentions that both Hodder and Cauvin urged an ideology-driven model of neolithization, and recognizes that our view contrasts with theirs. He is right; indeed, one of us has developed an (informal) individual economic choice model of the transition from foraging to farming in the Near East (Sterelny 2015). Rational economic agent models-models that see agents as making optimal decisions, given the options they face-rest on three sets of assumptions.…”

Section: Zedermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sterelny¹,

Watkins²

2015

CAJ

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We would like to begin by thanking the commentators for their thoughtful, informed and, for the most part, generous responses. Even Ofer Bar-Yosef, while clearly disagreeing deeply with our whole approach, has invested precious resources of time and thought in our paper. We shall respond commentary by commentary, but there are some common themes in the responses, and we will note those as we go through.

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Section: Shennanmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Zedermentioning

confidence: 99%

Response

Sterelny¹,

Watkins²

2015

CAJ

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“…Early in hominin evolution there were benefits such as security and defence, and in big-game hunting. In the more recent chapters of human evolution, particularly since the emergence of Homo sapiens , there are significant cultural benefits of scale and cooperation in large-scale social units (Richerson et al 2009 ; Shennan 2001 ; Sterelny 2011 , 2015 ); correspondingly, it is difficult, or even impossible, for social groups that reduce in size for whatever reason to sustain a large and complex body of cultural knowledge, and transmit it securely across generations (Henrich 2004 ). But the rate at which the size of population units increased through Epi-palaeolithic and early Neolithic was much faster than the biological brain could evolve; these groups would no longer be able to live together by means of the psychological capacities of the evolved Homo sapiens brain.…”

Section: Cultural Accumulation Transmission and Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Pleistocene to Holocene: the prehistory of southwest Asia in evolutionary context

Watkins

2017

HPLS

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In this paper I seek to show how cultural niche construction theory offers the potential to extend the human evolutionary story beyond the Pleistocene, through the Neolithic, towards the kind of very large-scale societies in which we live today. The study of the human past has been compartmentalised, each compartment using different analytical vocabularies, so that their accounts are written in mutually incompatible languages. In recent years social, cognitive and cultural evolutionary theories, building on a growing body of archaeological evidence, have made substantial sense of the social and cultural evolution of the genus Homo. However, specialists in this field of studies have found it difficult to extend their kind of analysis into the Holocene human world. Within southwest Asia the three or four millennia of the Neolithic period at the beginning of the Holocene represents a pivotal point, which saw the transformation of human society in the emergence of the first large-scale, permanent communities, the domestication of plants and animals, and the establishment of effective farming economies. Following the Neolithic, the pace of human social, economic and cultural evolution continued to increase. By 5000 years ago, in parts of southwest Asia and northeast Africa there were very large-scale urban societies, and the first large-scale states (kingdoms). An extension of cultural niche construction theory enables us to extend the evolutionary narrative of the Pleistocene into the Holocene, opening the way to developing a single, long-term, evolutionary account of human history.

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“…Regardless of the timing, scholars tend to agree that art (vocal, performative, and visual) is fundamentally related to more general phenomena involved in an expanding reliance on symbolic representation to coordinate complex social behaviour (Henshilwood 2014;Stiner 2014). And, increasingly, researchers are drawing on theoretical frameworks in behavioural ecology for conceptual tools to approach questions about symbolic expression and the function of material representation (Sterelny 2014(Sterelny , 2015Kuhn 2014).…”

Section: Signalling Theory and Durable Symbolic Expressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signalling Theory and Durable Symbolic Expression

Bird

2017

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art

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This chapter develops links between theoretical frameworks in social and biological sciences about the origins and maintenance of durable stylistic traditions of graphic representation, exploring the role that symbolic performance plays in facilitating cooperation and collective action. The foundations of human propensities for coordinating complex social interactions lie in our ability for shared intentionality: we can represent to ourselves the interior lives and intentional states of others. This empathic capacity likely emerged in novel rearing environments of cooperative breeding, where infant survival required discerning and trusting the intent of many different possible caretakers. Trust in many arenas of interaction is ensured primarily through symbolic signalling, whereby communication of underlying qualities and motivations is made honest through costly performance. The authors draw on traditions in street art and rock art to illustrate how graphic representations serve as an important type of signalling system whose design serves to coordinate complex social interaction.

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Optimizing Engines: Rational Choice in the Neolithic?

Cited by 14 publications

References 57 publications

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From Pleistocene to Holocene: the prehistory of southwest Asia in evolutionary context

Signalling Theory and Durable Symbolic Expression

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