The role of technology in cultural evolution

Merrill, Robert S.

doi:10.1080/19485565.1972.9987991

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…More recently, scholars not associated with any of these ideologies have argued that population pressure, far from being a significant impediment to economic development and cultural modernization, is often (or even regularly) an important impetus to change (e.g., Boserup 1965, Kuznets 1967. When applied to the development of primitive peoples, the new rationale generated the same differences as those pertaining to economies struggling to reach the take-off point (e.g., Sheffer 1971, Spooner 1972, Alland 1972, Merrill 1972, Carneiro 1972. As before, I would suggest that the evidence is too thin in either context to warrant universal generalizations.…”

Section: Ethnographic Analogymentioning

confidence: 88%

A Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography [and Comments and Replies]

Petersen¹,

Braidwood²,

Dobyns³

et al. 1975

Current Anthropology

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INCREASINGLY DURING the past decade or two, archeologists, prehistorians, anthropologists, and practitioners of related disciplines have grappled with the problems involved in deducing population statistics from various types of merely indicative data. The results have seldom been satisfactory even to the authors themselves. The comment in a recent archeology text (Hole and Heizer 1969:306) seems to be typical of the current mood: Probably few kinds of archeological interpretation have more systematically built-in sources of potential error than have estimates of population, yet such figures are commonly given and used for making further inferences. It is safe to say that, because our concert:s in archeology turn more and more toward reconstructing social systems, we shall have to devise methods of obtaining better demographic data. The way to proceed, I suggest, may be to make fuller use of some of the techniques that demographers have devised to analyze populations in other contexts. 1 The content of this paper was first presented as several lectures in an experimental interdisciplinary course, cross-listed in anthropology and geology-mineralogy, organized by Ernest G. Ehlers at Ohio State University. Its purpose was to present techniques derived from several disciplines that are useful in classifying and interpreting archeological data. In preparing the article, I received welcome guidance from colleagues at Ohio State University: Emilio Casetti in the Geography Department and William M. Sumner,

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Section: Ethnographic Analogymentioning

confidence: 88%

A Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography [and Comments and Replies]

Petersen¹,

Braidwood²,

Dobyns³

et al. 1975

Current Anthropology

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“…Anthropologists focus on culture (Foster 1962); as such, they discuss the role of TT in terms of cultural evolution (Merrill 1972) with particular emphasis on the advancement of society (Zhao and Reisman 1992). This rather broad view of TT tends to focus on technological development as changes in cultural and societal patterns (Zhao and Reisman 1992).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, it is well known that TT can improve the competitive advantage of a company (Baughn and Osborne 1989;Porter 1980). In addition, TT is a vital component for economic development (e.g., Mansfield 1968;Schumpeter 1928) and pivotal to advancing both society (e.g., Foster 1962;Merrill 1972) and social welfare (e.g., Chatterjee and Ireyes 1981;De Laet and Mol 2000;Rogers 2010). Moreover, the diverse challenges currently facing society, e.g., demographic shifts, intense urbanisation, ambitious climate goals, and maintaining high employment levels, will inevitably also affect the construction sector (Brege et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology transfer in the construction industry

Uusitalo

Lavikka

2020

J Technol Transf

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The demand for affordable, high-quality homes and premises has increased as society has evolved. Construction companies have shown that an industrialised housebuilding (IHB) platform strategy is an effective way of meeting exacting customer requirements. We decided to apply a managerial perspective and consider the IHB platform as a technological solution when investigating technology transfer (TT) in a construction context. Drawing on a meta-analysis of the literature and a qualitative case study at an IHB company, this work examines how two construction companies participate in TT. The results show that the IHB platform strategy can help a company overcome uncertainties associated with the TT process. Furthermore, the platform strategy supports the transferability of IHB to different markets, which, in turn, provides unique opportunities for companies from other contexts to enter the construction market. Our findings also revealed that CEOs from three construction companies were not only interested in TT due to potential profit improvements, but also considered how the process could benefit their employees and the community. This may be a result that is specific to Nordic culture or insight into a unique characteristic of the broad construction industry. This study contributes knowledge to the scarce research field of TT in a construction context. It provides evidence for how further cases of TT may disrupt the construction industry in terms of new business models or companies from the diverse field entering the market.

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“…A similar point may be made about &dquo;complexity&dquo; as differently viewed by anthropology and political science or sociology. &dquo;The development of more complex societies is neither the inevitable nor the only possible path of long-run change&dquo; (Merrill, 1972: 24; cf. Service, 1971).…”

Section: Development As Increasementioning

confidence: 99%

The Anthropology of Development

Patch

McMorrow

1977

American Behavioral Scientist

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AND APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY Anthropological use of &dquo;development&dquo; has survived the impedimenta of many connotations. In the nineteenth century an association was made between development and evolution. The onslaught on the Social Darwinians in the first part of the twentieth century repudiated the connotations of development along with social evolution. But threads of argument favoring social evolution were tenuously maintained, and a newly reasoned basis for social evolution and its connection with development emerged in the 1960s.During and after World War II most anthropologists became involved to a greater or lesser extent in a relatively new ambience. They were vessels of knowledge with immediate and important relevance to a new world. The call came from, among many others, Linton (1949) in his preface to Most of the World for them to make known their valuable insights and ease the way of emerging peoples in a postcolonial world. Fresh attention was given to culture change, with major foci on theoretical concepts of growth, process, contact, and acculturation (Keesing, 1953); cultural and technical change (Mead, 1953); and folk-urban continua (Redfield, 1941).Practical response came in the form of a view of anthropology which consciously marked out a field separate from traditional anthropology by employing a new insistence on the dimension of applied anthropology. A society had been founded in 1941. Typical of the new ferment

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The role of technology in cultural evolution

Cited by 9 publications

References 12 publications

A Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography [and Comments and Replies]

A Demographer's View of Prehistoric Demography [and Comments and Replies]

Technology transfer in the construction industry

The Anthropology of Development

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