scholarly journals Reconstructing social networks of Late Glacial and Holocene hunter–gatherers to understand cultural evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 377 (1843) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valéria Romano ◽  
Sergi Lozano ◽  
Javier Fernández-López de Pablo
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Social Connectivity ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Analytical Approaches

Culture is increasingly being framed as a driver of human phenotypes and behaviour. Yet very little is known about variations in the patterns of past social interactions between humans in cultural evolution. The archaeological record, combined with modern evolutionary and analytical approaches, provides a unique opportunity to investigate broad-scale patterns of cultural change. Prompted by evidence that a population's social connectivity influences cultural variability, in this article, we revisit traditional approaches used to infer cultural evolutionary processes from the archaeological data. We then propose that frameworks considering multi-scalar interactions (from individuals to populations) over time and space have the potential to advance knowledge in cultural evolutionary theory. We describe how social network analysis can be applied to analyse diachronic structural changes and test cultural transmission hypotheses using the archaeological record (here specifically from the Marine Isotope Stage 3 ca 57–29 ka onwards). We argue that the reconstruction of prehistoric networks offers a timely opportunity to test the interplay between social connectivity and culture and ultimately helps to disentangle evolutionary mechanisms in the archaeological record. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

scholarly journals Cultural Evolutionary Neuroscience

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryutaro Uchiyama ◽  
Michael Muthukrishna
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Neuroscience ◽  
Gene Frequencies ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
And Function ◽  
Evolutionary Neuroscience

Cultural evolution and cultural neuroscience are complementary approaches to understanding the origins and function of cross-cultural differences in psychology. Cultural evolution, and Dual Inheritance Theory more generally, offers a theoretical framework for understanding cultural transmission and cultural change and how these can change gene frequencies. However, these theories have largely ignored the details of the minds engaging in these processes. Cultural evolutionary models tend to treat the brain as a black-box. Cultural neuroscience offers a rich toolkit for examining how cross-cultural psychological differences manifest at a neurological level. However, these tools have largely been used to document differences between populations. Cultural neuroscience tends to ignore why we should expect these differences or how to identify if they are meaningful. We review work in each field to carve a pathway for a productive synthesis. This cultural evolutionary neuroscience will benefit both fields and lead to a more complete understanding of human culture.

scholarly journals Current and potential roles of archaeology in the development of cultural evolutionary theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1743) ◽  
pp. 20170057 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raven Garvey
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Transmission Mechanisms ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Archaeological Analysis

Archaeology has much to contribute to the study of cultural evolution. Empirical data at archaeological timescales are uniquely well suited to tracking rates of cultural change, detecting phylogenetic signals among groups of artefacts, and recognizing long-run effects of distinct cultural transmission mechanisms. Nonetheless, these are still relatively infrequent subjects of archaeological analysis and archaeology's potential to help advance our understanding of cultural evolution has thus far been largely unrealized. Cultural evolutionary models developed in other fields have been used to interpret patterns identified in archaeological records, which in turn provides independent tests of these models' predictions, as demonstrated here through a study of late Prehistoric stone projectile points from the US Southwest. These tests may not be straightforward, though, because archaeological data are complex, often representing events aggregated over many years (or centuries or millennia), while processes thought to drive cultural evolution (e.g. biased learning) operate on much shorter timescales. To fulfil archaeology's potential, we should continue to develop models specifically tailored to archaeological circumstances, and explore ways to incorporate the rich contextual data produced by archaeological research. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution’.

scholarly journals Identifying innovation in laboratory studies of cultural evolution: rates of retention and measures of adaptation

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1690) ◽  
pp. 20150193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Caldwell ◽  
Hannah Cornish ◽  
Anne Kandler
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Retention Rates ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Task Success

In recent years, laboratory studies of cultural evolution have become increasingly prevalent as a means of identifying and understanding the effects of cultural transmission on the form and functionality of transmitted material. The datasets generated by these studies may provide insights into the conditions encouraging, or inhibiting, high rates of innovation, as well as the effect that this has on measures of adaptive cultural change. Here we review recent experimental studies of cultural evolution with a view to elucidating the role of innovation in generating observed trends. We first consider how tasks are presented to participants, and how the corresponding conceptualization of task success is likely to influence the degree of intent underlying any deviations from perfect reproduction. We then consider the measures of interest used by the researchers to track the changes that occur as a result of transmission, and how these are likely to be affected by differing rates of retention. We conclude that considering studies of cultural evolution from the perspective of innovation provides us with valuable insights that help to clarify important differences in research designs, which have implications for the likely effects of variation in retention rates on measures of cultural adaptation.

scholarly journals Theoretical plurality, the extended evolutionary synthesis, and archaeology

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. e2006564118
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Prentiss
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Cognitive Archaeology ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

The study of cultural evolution now includes multiple theoretical frameworks. Despite common influence from Darwinian evolutionary theory, there is considerable diversity. Thus, we recognize those most influenced by the tenets of the Modern Synthesis (evolutionary archaeology, cultural transmission theory, and human behavioral ecology) and those most aligned more closely with concepts emerging in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (cultural macroevolution and evolutionary cognitive archaeology). There has been substantial debate between adherents of these schools of thought as to their appropriateness and priority for addressing the fundamentals of cultural evolution. I argue that theoretical diversity is necessary to address research questions arising from a complex archaeological record. Concepts associated with the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis may offer unique insights into the cultural evolutionary process.

A theory limited in scope and evidence

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Miu ◽  
Robert Boyd ◽  
Peter J. Richerson ◽  
Thomas J. H. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Do So

Abstract What promised to be a refreshing addition to cumulative cultural evolution, by moving the focus from cultural transmission to technological innovation, falls flat through a lack of thoroughness, explanatory power, and data. A comprehensive theory of cumulative cultural change must carefully integrate all existing evidence in a cohesive multi-level account. We argue that the manuscript fails to do so convincingly.

scholarly journals Descent with modification and the archaeological record

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1070-1079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Shennan
Keyword(s):  
Inverse Problem ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Number Of Genes ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Made In

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.

scholarly journals THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION OF ADAPTIVE-TRAIT DIVERSITY WHEN RESOURCES ARE UNCERTAIN AND FINITE

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 1150013 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK W. LAKE ◽  
ENRICO R. CREMA
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Ideal Free Distribution ◽  
Shared Resource ◽  
Trait Diversity ◽  
Low Diversity ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
High Diversity ◽  
Ideal Free

In this paper, we seek to build on existing mathematical studies of cultural change by exploring how the diversity of adaptive cultural traits evolves by innovation and cultural transmission when the payoff from adopting traits is both uncertain and frequency dependent. The model is particularly aimed at understanding the evolution of subsistence trait diversity, since the payoff from exploiting particular resources is often variable and subject to diminishing returns as a result of overexploitation. We find that traits that exploit the same shared resource evolve most quickly when intermediate rates of cultural transmission promote fluctuation in trait diversity. Higher rates of cultural transmission, which promote predominantly low diversity, and lower rates, which promote predominantly high diversity, both retard the adoption of traits offering higher payoff. We also find that the distribution of traits that exploit independent resources can evolve towards the theoretical Ideal Free Distribution so long as the rate of cultural transmission is low. Increasing the rate of cultural transmission reduces trait diversity, so that a more limited number of "niches" are occupied at any given time.

Stylistic Variation in Evolutionary Perspective: Inferences from Decorative Diversity and Interassemblage Distance in Illinois Woodland Ceramic Assemblages

1995 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fraser D. Neiman
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Sampling Error ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Stylistic Variation ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Neutral Variation ◽  
Ceramic Assemblages

Certain aspects of what archaeologists have traditionally called stylistic variation can be understood as the result of the introduction of selectively neutral variation into social-learning populations and the sampling error in the cultural transmission of that variation (drift). Simple mathematical models allow the deduction of expectations for the dynamics of these evolutionary mechanisms as monitored in the archaeological record through assemblage diversity and interassemblage distance. The models are applied to make inferences about the causes of change in decorative diversity and interassemblage distance for Woodland ceramics from Illinois.

scholarly journals The Evolutionary Dynamics of Cultural Change (As Told Through the Birth and Brutal, Blackened Death of Metal Music)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Koch ◽  
Daniele Silvestro ◽  
Jacob G. Foster
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Diversification Rates ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Metal Music ◽  
Complete Dataset ◽  
History Of

How does culture change? We unify disconnected explanations of change that focus either on individuals or on public culture under a theory of cultural evolution. By shifting our analytical lens from actors to public cultural ideas and object, our theory can explain change in cultural forms over large and long frames of analysis using formal evolutionary mechanisms. Complementing this theory, the paper introduces a suite of novel methods to explain change in the historical trajectories of populations of cultural ideas/objects (e.g., music groups, hashtags, laws, technologies, and organizations) through diversification rates. We deploy our theory and methods to study the history of Metal Music over more than three decades, using a complete dataset of all bands active between 1968 and 2000. Over the course of its history, we find strong evidence that the genre has been fundamentally shaped by competition between ideas for the cognitive resources actors can invest in learning about and reproducing this cultural form over time. Extensive tutorials for the methods are available at http://www.dysoc.org/cesmodules/diversification_module/tutorials.

The Evolution of Culture as a New Pattern for Comparative Religion

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-156
Author(s):  
Aiyana K. Willard
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

AbstractIn his new book, Paden argues that evolutionary theory creates new and fertile ground for the comparative study of religion. I suggest that extending Paden’s argument to embrace new theories of cultural evolution will continue to broaden our ability understand the origins of both the similarities and differences in religions across societies. Religions are cultural systems and as such an understanding of our shared biology can only explain a limited amount of what religion is and does. I discuss how new cultural evolutionary theories that examine cultural variation and cultural change based on how humans learn and transmit cultural content and can improve the theoretical foundations of comparative studies of religion. Exploring different mechanisms of cultural learning can help explain why certain features of religion are found across a wide variety of religions while others are only found in specific groups.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document